Star of the County Down
by Dana Janeway
Summary: Sequel to "Apocrypha" - now complete! If you like this twisted little universe, it lives on in "Senza Misura" located in the Star Trek: Next Generation archive.
1. Chapter 1

_Star of the County Down_

_Chapter One_

Fleet Admiral O'Shaughnessy stood in a darkened briefing room with three other men who were in his close confidence. He paced, as was his natural habit, with his hands behind his back in a rather neat and well-bred manner. His right hand, Admiral Pallin, was informing him on the latest developments in a classified project known as the Ultimate Starfleet Officer.

"I didn't think the former Maquis Chakotay would come so easily," Pallin said, "but once a traitor, always a traitor. At any rate, he's done his job commendably, and the biohazard has been contained, for the time being. But we'll have to take new measures to protect it I'm afraid."

Admiral Montoya, a man of generous proportions, also rose from his chair and gazed pensively out the window at the glowing lights of the Starfleet base.

"Perhaps we were wrong to choose Alpha Walker as our safe ground," he said in a thoughtful tone.

"And why is that?" snapped Fleet Admiral O'Shaughnessy, walking metrically closer. "Are you thinking of that little racing club?"

Montoya raised a thick eyebrow. "That little racing club," he said, "has over a hundred members if I recall. And they might have become curious since we raided their station in search of our wayward officers. Some of them have even come into contact with the biohazard."

O'Shaughnessy frowned. "I seem to remember a time when half of Apocrypha's racers were officers on our side, keeping up the pretence of a playground for the daredevil. Has so much changed since then?"

"It would seem that Apocrypha has become stronger under Margaret Thorpe's leadership."

"I see." His eyes took on a misty quality. "Margaret Thorpe is an excessively stupid woman," he said. "She'll wring her own neck eventually."

"Oh? And Captain Janeway? Is she also an excessively stupid woman?"

O'Shaughnessy smiled, in the refined way he had of smiling when he really wanted to snarl. "Well no, I can't say that she is," he said softly, sounding amused. "But of course I can't say that she's a Captain anymore either." His heavy boots clicked toward the door. "Can I gentlemen?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

"Good afternoon, Admiral, I hope I'm not disturbing you... Yes, I'll have that report on your desk by o-seven-hundred tomorrow... And you, sir. Chakotay out."

Leaving his beautifully furnished office for the day, Chakotay stole a quick look at himself in one of the long windows. He wore the new grey Starfleet uniform, and it was pressed and spotless and fit very well around his broad shoulders, giving him a look of diligence that was quite appropriate.

When he had gone to B'Elanna and showed her what he had become, she had slapped him. Every member of the _Voyager_ crew who had been made aware of recent developments within the organization despised him. He was the worst of traitors, one who would abandon the people with whom he had served for seven years for the reward of a comfortable lifestyle. He had never been so hated in all his life, and it amazed him how easy it had been to accomplish this feat. He considered it to be an indication of the times. Nothing, these days, was as fragile as loyalty, and lovers and soldiers alike were almost expected to betray. He had become a casualty of war, another weak-willed officer whose allegiance was for sale and whose head could turn at any temptation. And everyone, including his closest friends, believed him to be fully capable of this behavior.

It was night when he left the Starfleet grounds, and proceeded south on foot. The modest walk did not tire him, and he watched the ratio of uniformed men and women to civilians gradually decreasing, until, finally, the uniforms were harder to spot. He had walked across the Golden Gate bridge several times since Voyager landed, and it had become a strange pilgrimage for him to mingle with the tourists, to gaze at Sausalito, where he had never been, and Angel Island, where the Advanced Starship Design Bureau still had its offices. Sometimes, he had been recognized by people who had followed the news headlines about Voyager, and they stopped him and asked all kinds of nonsensical questions. But tonight he was hoping for quiet, indeed he required it. He walked at a steady pace for nearly a mile, with his back straight and his eyes forward, and then when he was confident of being alone, he casually paused, going closer to the edge, to get a better look. The wind was disturbing the water fiercely tonight, and it glared and shimmered as it moved underneath the bridge. Chakotay remained there, quite still for several moments. And then he continued on his way, quietly dropping his comm badge into the San Francisco Bay.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

``Who`ve you got for temporal mechanics this semester?``

``Professor Gallway.``

``Gallway! He`s a monster. You`ll have to change sections.``

Classes having let out for the evening, the Academy campus was alight with activity. Students who did not live in the San Francisco area prepared for their commute home, while others lingered in front of the dormitory steps, recounting the events of the day.

``…Anyway I never much liked temporal mechanics. It`s so abstract. What are the chances that in any of our lifetimes, we`ll run across the predestination paradox on a standard mission? I mean, unless the _Voyager_ space flight is somehow destined to repeat itself every seven years.``

``Oh I almost forgot! Speaking of _Voyager,_ I heard something today that`ll make your head spin more than any temporal mechanics class. The Captain of _Voyager _has resigned her commission.``

``What? Captain Janeway?``

``That`s right. Apparently, she just walked out cold, no explanation, no word of warning. They say,`` said the gossip-mongering cadet, in hushed tones, his eyes widening, ``that she ran away to join a covert racing operation that goes on on one of the former Starfleet space stations. Unauthorized racing vessels, equipment that hasn`t even been tested for safety protocols.``

This cadet`s compatriot, being somewhat older and wiser, did not impress as easily as would have been desired. ``Well you know, I heard that Captain Janeway is such a stickler for Starfleet regulations that she would rather die alone in the Delta quadrant than interpret the prime directive. Maybe you`re thinking of another Captain.``

``I`m telling you, it`s the truth! I overheard two teachers talking about it in the stellar cartography lab. From what they were saying, her career is as good as over. It`s the scandal of the century.``

``Or the tall tale of the century.``

``You`re just too stubborn to believe it. But tell me, what do you think could make a celebrated officer like Captain Janeway, with nothing but power, prestige and success in her future, throw everything away and become an outlaw?``

The older student shook his head. ``I have no idea,`` he said, and before he disappeared behind the doors of the housing complex, ``but if it is true, I suppose we all ought to start taking psychology in addition to temporal mechanics.``


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

_From Bantry Bay up to Derry Quay_

_And from Galway to Dublin town_

_No maid I've seen like the sweet colleen_

_That I met in the County Down._

A red-haired woman stood on the pier, surveying an ancient scene and recognizing, with some discomfort, her smallness within it. For the first time in many years, she felt herself to be completely alone, facing a terrifying freedom. No longer a representative of a larger group, she had forsaken that life for another one much less certain. The members of her immediate family, no doubt, were disappointed in her choice, because there was no way they could understand and no way she could explain. But all of them seemed so far away now, as if they only belonged in that other life to which she could never return.

In the days since her dismissal from Starfleet, Kathryn had turned much of her attention to her physical training, such that her body had become an instrument of war, lean and powerful enough that she could, in the event, outrun the enemy, pursue it, or defeat it. This, and her face had also changed, in that she bore a scar on her right temple from the attack on the Class G planet. Since that time, more than one medical professional had approached her about the scar. She did not doubt that someone more skilled than the physician who treated her could have effectively removed it, but nonetheless she elected to keep it. Somehow it would have been disingenuous to repair that wound, a gesture of disrespect to her experience. And in a sense the scar satisfied her vanity more than it interfered.

She had not wanted to grow out her hair, because this reminded her of Chakotay, of the few times he had touched her hair when it was long, by accident or by half-accident. But she did grow it, and now it hung below her shoulders in loose auburn waves. On the rare chances that she glimpsed herself in a mirror, she barely recognized herself.

She had become convinced, through the spontaneous investigations she undertook, that the missing piece in the devastating corruption of Starfleet was the Borg collective itself. Her principal liaison in her research was the tough-minded, square-shouldered Margaret Thorpe, who acted for the time being as the managing director of the Apocrypha racing club. For a reason that Kathryn was still unsure of, this woman had a terrible grudge against Starfleet and in one way or another was determined to be the instrument of its undoing. Kathryn understood that at the very least, Apocrypha as a whole had been humiliated – kept alive, so to speak, because of the wishes of corrupt officials to conduct business in an out-of-the-way place. But the Ultimate Starfleet Officer Project, a cold-blooded initiative to create and reproduce Borg-human hybrids, was surely too complex and far-reaching to have been carried out by Starfleet alone. Most, if not all, Apocrypha employees believed that the project was directly related to an alleged treaty between the Federation and the Borg, that it was in all probability a conciliatory gesture to avoid direct capture by the collective.

Because she was free to do as she wished and because she had, at least for the moment, the support of Apocrypha, Kathryn had it in her mind to seek out the Borg. She had set up an observatory on a small planet outside of Federation space, and for the past several days had been conducting long-range scans in an effort to locate the nearest cube. She considered herself without any prideful sentiment to be less afraid of the Borg collective than any other officer in Starfleet. She had, over the past several years, systematically fought this group, joined forces with it, by turns outwitted it and fallen prey to it, argued with it, and she had come, by the default of her own experience, to a deep understanding of its principles and structure. And she had learned, through a terrible confluence of events, that she too was susceptible to the allure of collective living, to the extent that she could barely believe that the organization to which she had devoted her life could have fallen so irretrievably from grace. She knew it was true, now, and she knew that she had to begin believing everything she had always said about the nature of individuality.

And she had to do it alone. The crew of _Voyager_ was her heart and soul, linking her to the past, and fulfilling an otherwise unsatisfied desire for a family of her own. But there was no way she could see or talk to any of them again. She had agreed to relinquish her officer status and disappear from Starfleet entirely, in exchange for a judicial reprieve. The men who had, by unknown means, taken control of several high-ranking administrative positions had warned her to never set foot in San Francisco again, and, without mincing words, had indicated what would happen if she were to go back on this agreement. Kathryn had wished desperately that she could have told her former crew, any of them, but in the last analysis had made up her mind that it was too dangerous. And she had walked out of the Administration complex for the last time with her head held high, in civilian clothing, and she had taken a civilian shuttlecraft back to Alpha Walker. She had in effect disappeared, and anyone who had ever known her was free to speculate on, and to guess, and to judge her reasons.

What she was living for, she told herself, was the idea that justice could still be done. By the same token, she herself was quite prepared to die in pursuit of this justice, and had no real doubt that she most likely would die pursuing it. She did not consider this to be too great a sacrifice. Perhaps it had been the brief but intense time she had spent with her flight partner Cassandra, a young woman with a quite obvious suicide wish, that had instilled in her a kind of macabre indifference about the length of her own life. If she could be, for the remaining moments that she was alive, an instrument of that justice that seemed to be too precarious and elusive to be sustained, then she could die with a clear conscience, having honoured all the innocents who had suffered or who might in future suffer for her cause.

At long last, she had located the ship she had been hoping to discover, and received word from Margaret that her own vessel would be ready and delivered to her. She spent her final days on the planet preparing her flight plan. On the last day, she woke up with the rising of the planet's sun and completed her task, and she began to pack her things, and to eliminate any trace of her presence on the planet. She did not think she had been followed; that is, she believed they were most likely looking for her but she thought she had for the moment evaded them. For several hours she waited at the pier, the wind whipping at the loose fabric of her tunic, until shortly before nightfall she spotted her Apocrypha vessel approaching.

_Iberia, _which she considered her prized posession although it never technically belonged to her, had been destroyed on the Class G planet, and this streamlined metallic grey flyer was Apocrypha`s attempt at a suitable replacement. Kathryn recognized the woman who presently stepped out of the vessel as her flight partner. She was tall and thin, and she wore the Apocrypha black racing gloves on her hands. Kathryn was aware that this was not her Cassandra, not the woman who had died in a race toward Aurelius Prime, but another woman just like her, with the same body, the same face, and perhaps an almost identical mind.

She walked toward the woman to introduce herself, and expected a pair of strange hazel eyes to meet her gaze. She stiffened with surprise and recognition as she saw the clear, round blue eyes that stared back, at once accusing and tender. She was so terribly used to that stare, and she thought if she did not see it for years, she would still know it anywhere. The positions of the implants had changed, but there could be no doubt; this woman was Seven of Nine.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five_

A small, rail-thin man, his features invisible in the dark, paced rhythmically around a concrete pole in a parking lot on Marina Boulevard. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he wore an expensive watch that glittered occasionally in the light of passing vehicles. He glanced down at the watch, and his shadow moved along the concrete pole accordingly. Doors on low-flying shuttlecraft opened and closed in the distance.

A second set of footsteps joined his, and grew louder. The man who entered the garage was tall and broad-shouldered, the outline of his Starfleet uniform just visible near his collar and around his waist.

"You must be Chakotay," said the small man.

"That's right," said the other. "And you? What do I call you?"

There was a short pause. "A friend."

"That much you've said. How am I to trust you if you won't tell me your name?"

A knotty hand flew upward, in a fleeting gesture of disapproval. "What does that matter? You can call me Balthasar, but that's no guarantee you can trust me."

The small, rail-thin man took several steps closer, in a display of power that belied his physical size. "I risked my life to meet you here tonight, and that's what you need to know about me."

"Well, why did you decide to meet me here?"

"Because I refuse to stand by while these men, if you can call them that, rise to power. To that end, I've come to give you what you want: information, on Kathryn Janeway. I've come to tell you that her life is in danger."

The other raked his large hands through his hair. "I wish I could say that surprises me. What do they want with her?"

"I can tell you that, and I can tell you where she is. But it won't help."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, Commander," said the man who called himself Balthasar, sharply, "that you can't save her. No one can. She's been targeted."

"By whom?"

"By the men I've spoken of. They have targeted Janeway, and right now all she is doing is falling further into their hands. She believes that this group of criminals, this Apocrypha, can help her. But she has to return to Starfleet. Do you understand? She must return, and reclaim her captaincy, or else she'll be destroyed as well."

"What are you talking about? You said you have information for me, fine. Tell me where I can find her."

Balthasar chuckled, and the flash of a passing shuttlecraft briefly illuminated the lines around his narrowing black eyes. "Commander, I'd imagine that there are quite a number of women who would value this type of devotion from you. Why become obsessed with the only one who doesn't?"

He could not, of course, see the other man's reaction to this taunt, but he could feel it, seeping through the concrete floor.

"You, and people like you," said Chakotay, "probably think you know everything about everyone. You keep files, you have access to personal information. But this isn't about Janeway at all, is it? It's about you, leading me where you think I want to go. Why should I believe you? What do you have to gain in all of this?"

The small, rail-thin man stepped even further forward, and withdrew his other hand. In it was a computer pad, which he offered. "This war will continue to be fought whether you decide to believe me or not. Maybe you should ask yourself if doubt is a luxury you can afford."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Kathryn examined the expressionless face of her erstwhile protege, words, at the moment, having deserted her. At first she thought that this must be some cruel trick of Margaret's – but that lady was not present on the planet and could not be questioned. Margaret, it would seem, had a great affinity for these half-drones, these Cassandras as they called themselves. Did she know who Seven really was? Had she always known, had she engineered this transformation? Kathryn shook her head slightly and gathered herself to the best of her ability.

She said simply, "You've altered your physiology," in an attempt to speak without indicating judgment or alarm.

And then the expressionless face, which had been expressionless or nearly so for the better part of a decade, began to change. The corner of Seven's mouth turned up in a wry smile. She looked Kathryn up and down, her lids half-closing in a withering gaze. And she said, with laughter in her voice, "Is that the best you can do, Kathryn?"

"I – I'm not sure what you mean." Kathryn trying with little success to control the rapid-fire beating of her heart in her chest. Seven's ocular implant, the Borg technology that had for so long overwhelmed her lovely features, was gone, and in its place was a jagged scar. Kathryn wanted so badly to believe that it was all a horrible joke, perhaps even a nightmare typical of her own restless sleep.

"You've changed," she repeated hazily. "You've become one of them. Seven... Who did this to you? Why?"

Seven continued to smile, and she seemed to take some amount of pleasure in the effect she was eliciting. "You know very well why," she said evenly. "The Ultimate Starfleet Officer. I needed a way to escape, and I've come out the other side." She leaned toward Kathryn, the sarcastic lines on her face deepening into mockery. "Don't be so scared. I can still fly a ship, and ever since this little operation I've been feeling quite the need for speed, so I think you'll be satisfied."

Kathryn took a step back, her face ashen. "You - you've been assigned to take me to the cube."

"What's wrong, Kathryn? Don't you think it's fitting that I should go with you? We've had our day, haven't we, with the Borg? Sometimes I used to feel as if it were you and I against the world. But of course I could never tell you that. I could never tell you how you protected me all those years, kept me safe." Seven breathed a frustrated sigh, and shrugged her shoulders. "But now I suppose I can tell you anything I want, can't I. I can tell you anything I feel. You see, I'm free now."

Kathryn parted her lips to speak, but again found herself without words. Seven, in a gesture not to have been imagined in a thousand years, reached out her hand, offering it. Although she was stunned, Kathryn took the cold, gloved hand and held it. She could feel the Borg technology in this hand, pressing against her pale skin.

"Trust me," said Seven quietly. The scorn had disappeared from her face, and her eyes shone into Kathryn's. "Fly with me. The two of us are unstoppable together; don't you believe that still? Let's forget the past, it doesn't matter anymore. We can beat this, together, like always, Kathryn."

There were so many reasons to abandon this fight; so many pillars of logic to fall back on in order make the right choice. But something, perhaps that same unknown force that had often overtaken her judgment since her return from _Voyager_, silenced Kathryn's logic and made her vulnerable to this call to arms. "Like always," she replied, her voice rising like a question, tears stinging her tired eyes.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

"And childish fears I have outgrown into my eyes are thrust, `til my dull tears go dropping down like lead into the dust."*

Seven spoke this ancient poetry in a thin monotone, the way she had spoken the heading of their flight course a few moments before. Kathryn turned to her in amazement.

"You're afraid," said Seven, "not of this mission, not of what might happen to you. You're afraid of me."

_Iolanthe _was an impressive vessel, although not quite the marvel of modern technology that _Iberia _had been. How Apocrypha managed to have these ships manufactured, tested and ready for launch, compensating for the others that seemed to be destroyed on a daily basis, Kathryn had yet to fathom. They were all racers, capable of travelling at high warp if necessary but built for those violent chases at impulse speeds. If it were any indication of the recent change in her, Seven was a daring pilot, flying too fast and too close to the obstructions in her path.

"If I'm afraid," said Kathryn, "it's because I'm can't be sure of who you are anymore."

"Oh?" Seven arched an eyebrow in much the same way that she always had. "And what about you? Not long ago you would have been giving me orders on how to fly this ship, but now you're a passenger. I'd say we've both changed a fair bit."

Seven's language, along with her physical appearance, had undergone a significant change. The perfunctory computer-speak of the ex-drone's younger life had been replaced with most, if not all, of the shades of human sentiment capable of being expressed through language. But Kathryn took this challenge calmly, drawing in a slow breath and deliberating her response. "You're correct," she said. "I can't give orders anymore." She paused. "How does that make you feel, Seven?"

Seven of Nine laughed, the low, hollow laugh of a Cassandra. "How does it make me feel?" she repeated, and when she looked at Kathryn her eyes were wet. "Well I'll admit to you that it feels tremendous. Tremendous to know that no one, not the Borg and not you and not anyone, will ever be giving me orders again."

The starship hurtled past an asteroid, nearly grazing the hull. Kathryn ignored this, the blood already rising in her temples in a familiar and dreaded exhilaration.

Seven reached into a pocket on her black racing uniform, and extracted a small vial of a blue liquid. She drank from it, a placid expression on her face, and she closed her large eyes momentarily.

"You believe that I've never truly forgiven you for taking me away from the collective, but you don't understand what it meant to me."

Kathryn frowned, vaguely realizing that this was, in fact, what she had been thinking – that Seven, after all these years, still held a grudge and was finally in a position to do something about it. "What did it mean to you?" she asked, as innocently as she could.

Seven paused again before replying. She stared dead ahead as she spoke, and knit her brows in concentration. "You saved me from something that I couldn't even recognize, you woke me from a sleep more profound than death. But once awake, I found that I was only half myself, human and not human, woman and machine and not the better part of either. I tried to be what you wanted me to be, and to feel what you wanted me to feel, but there was always something missing. I think you knew that, but you were so stubborn, and you have that greatness in you, to see possibilities where others see only failure. They say there is a fine line between genius and illness, and there are others besides yourself who saw potential in me, men who have been attempting to create a race of powerful soldiers. I did make a good soldier, I think, so those men were not wrong about me. The Cassandras believed they would have to wage war to force me away from Starfleet. But to shed that identity, to finally part ways with Seven of Nine, was the greatest gift I have ever received. Do you know, Kathryn," she said, turning her head, her voice suddenly rich with emotion, "that I am now able to cry, for hours, to weep as bitterly as a human child, and to laugh, to feel the breeze on my back and know the ecstasy of freedom. I can feel the cold sting of betrayal and I can burn for revenge, and yet my heart can break with compassion and allow me to be merciful. Such things I have never known, and never would have known if I had remained as I was. But you _do _understand Kathryn, because the same thing has happened to you. I can see it so clearly now, and I know that you've escaped, too."

Kathryn's hands gripped the metal edges of her chair. She had begun to feel the dizzying pull of Seven's mind on her own. She could feel Seven in the interior of her thoughts, studying them with the eye of a scientist and learning those parts of her that she would have not willingly shared. Her heartbeat rose in her chest. "Seven, wait –"

"I keep telling you not to be afraid. Don't fight this; it shouldn't have to be so hard. Isn't it only natural for two people who have shared so much to be together in this way?"

Kathryn willed herself to look only at the expanse of space ahead of her, to focus only on this race against time in which she was a hapless passenger. But Seven probed further into her mind with some unseen instrument.

"It's so simple, really. It's just like opening a window. This is the kind of freedom that you crave, what you've been searching for ever since you left _Voyager._"

Kathryn wanted with all her heart to hate this woman, and everything that she was saying. But she was beginning to feel that if she looked up, it might be enough to drown her in that intense desire to merge, to surrender her mind and her distinctiveness, to be as one with Seven and Cassandra and with all the others. She should have known this was coming; that the devil within was perhaps even stronger than the devil outside – but she held on for dear life.

"I can see you now, in the way that I've always wanted to see you. I know what you want, and what you are ashamed of, and every wave of pleasure and pain you've ever experienced. I know it because I've transformed, I've become everything I am meant to be. Don't pretend to me that you don't have that same hunger in you. Look at me, Kathryn. Look at me and tell me that you don't want to know me the same way that I am knowing you in this moment."

Kathryn did raise her eyes, and she did look at Seven. She looked, and felt exactly that – hunger. But was a hunger that transcended the physical, and could be satiated only in reaching that forbidden level of shared experience. There was half the liquid remaining in the vial. Kathryn ran her tongue over her lips in frustration, white knuckles tightening on her chair.

Aloud she said, her voice breaking, "I do want it. You know very well that I do." She could almost feel her own transformation taking place as she spoke the words, feel the liquid dissolving into her blood and bringing her to a new height of consciousness. "But I'm not going to drink from that vial, and you're not going to force me."

In another moment, she felt the claws retract, the grip loosen. Her heartbeat slowed and she began to regain control, enough to wonder why Seven had not tried harder to effect the assimilation.

But Seven was also recovering, and she almost resembled her old self as she turned away with only a look of mild surprise. As a matter of course, she unfastened the top of the vial and swallowed the remainder of the drug.

The ship sped onward into a starless abyss. "I'm sorry," Seven said after a long silence.

"For what?" asked Kathryn diplomatically. "This is just your nature now, isn't it?"

"No," said Seven, looking at her console. "I mean, I'm sorry about the past, about Chakotay. You have to believe that I wouldn't have done a thing in the world to harm you."

Kathryn accepted, as she had no choice but to do, that Seven now knew her with the intimacy of a best friend or of a lover, and possibly with the same tenderness. She still found it terribly disconcerting to hear these out-of-character turns of phrase, yet she recognized their meaning. "Well, if I didn't believe it a few minutes ago, I do now." She tilted her head back and cast a nostalgic smile in Seven's direction. "That was another lifetime ago. Ancient history."

And as she turned back toward the view screen, Kathryn saw this history fading even farther, and the future loomed ahead in the form of a single Borg vessel, badly damaged but still upright, its green lights low in the space surrounding it. Kathryn felt all her senses on fire with that curious mixture of terror and intuitive sureness that had so defined her existence of late. She looked back at Seven, her eyes bright with expectation.

"You're one of them now," she said, her voice low and hoarse and almost accusing. "A Cassandra. I know the Cassandras, better than you think. Tell me, Seven, do you mean to die today?"

A small hint of the sarcastic snarl had returned to Seven's face, and she said, "Not today."

*From _Nuit Blanche _by Edna St. Vincent Millay


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter Eight_

Fleet Admiral O'Shaughnessy tapped a large, black-booted foot on the side of his chair.

"Well?"

Admiral Montoya simply shook his head.

"You have no information on Commander Chakotay's whereabouts."

"No, sir, not as yet. But we will find him."

"It doesn't matter. Someone is feeding him information, someone on the inside."

"What could he possibly know?" said Montoya, somewhat derisively.

Admiral O'Shaughnessy returned a cold gaze. "He could know the truth." He rose and walked away slowly from his round window. "Or he could know how to find Kathryn Janeway."

"Kathryn Janeway, as I believe you mentioned yourself, is no longer a threat."

There was a pause. "I'm not sure."

"Sir, she has no friends, no allies. She might as well –"

"She has Apocrypha. I don`t like to admit it, but I`ve come round to your way of thinking about those people. It may be tempting enough, but underestimating one's enemies is a cardinal sin. Look at this."

Admiral Montoya took the computer pad given him, read it, and pursed his thick lips. "What is this?"

"The Cassandras. They've been recruiting, altering the physiology of others in order to expand their collective."

Admiral Montoya's face was ghostly white. "Seven of Nine."

"Yes," hissed O'Shaughnessy, "She is lost to us now. We have lost control, Admiral. First Chakotay, and now this. Apocrypha must be stopped, and the Cassandras terminated."

Montoya's black eyes widened. "I don't understand this," he said. "I thought they would come to an end on their own."

"Apparently the famous death-wish isn't as strong as we thought. Or they're simply making a game of it. Either way, it ends now."

"We have no weapons."

"If we cut them off from the biohazard, they won't survive. It's the only way."

Slowly, Montoya nodded.

Admiral O`Shaughnessy was not a young man. His hair was entirely gray, yet it was still thick, and carefully combed. His features, though faded, were rather handsome, and he had very pale eyes which seemed to take in everything and reflect very little.

"This isn't the first time we've destroyed what we've created, " he said, "and it may not be the last. But the Ultimate Starfleet Officer project will succeed. I know the Cassandras were your brainchild, Peter, and I'm sorry, but we have to know when to cut our losses and move on. These women have become a threat, when once they were simply machines, instruments of our own design. The very thing that made them great – their humanity - will ultimately destroy them. But that can`t be a concern of ours any longer. It is our prerogative, our duty even, to build, and take apart, and rebuild again. "


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

_Attention all personnel: Starfleet Intelligence is seeking information on the whereabouts of Commander Chakotay, wanted on charges of interfering with a Starfleet investigation. Any officer found to be withholding information on Commander Chakotay`s whereabouts will be subject to criminal prosecution. Warrant issued by Fleet Admiral Derek R. O`Shaughnessy._

"Damn it, Chakotay! "

B`Elanna Torres swore and hurled a computer pad back onto the desk in Chakotay's office, which she had, without many qualms, broken into. How could she have been taken in by his flimsy deception? She blamed herself for walking away, when a crumbling marriage and the challenges of new parenthood had proved to be too great a distraction. She had not taken Chakotay's alarm about Apocrypha seriously enough, nor the death of Owen Paris, which, according to the underground information highway, was attributable to a classified drug known as Psychic Sisters. Tom himself had wanted nothing to do with these rumours; Starfleet had always been corrupt, said he, and herein lay the proof. But B'Elanna understood now that this was not a realistic assessment, but rather the unnatural apathy of an embittered son.

She felt that she had had enough of this bitterness, and upon hearing the news of Chakotay`s disappearance, sprang into action. She learned that Captain Janeway had suddenly left Starfleet, and could only imagine that Chakotay had gone in search of her. B`Elanna`s first thought had been to organize a group - heaven knew that there were enough officers still devoted to Captain Janeway - but she thought the better of it, having no wish to attract attention.

Glancing around the bright, unimaginatively furnished room that contained no reflection at all of Chakotay`s true nature or personality, B`Elanna marvelled at what this man had been able to accomplish, perhaps by the sheer force of his will. She thought, fondly, of the days when she had been more than a little in love with him, and when he had been little more than a walking mass of contradictions. Chakotay, the peace-loving warrior, always ready to lay aside his weapons and fight with his fists. B'Elanna could never be sure what it was that had finally changed him, made him more steadfast and single-minded. In the past he could be quixotic, prone to sudden changes of temperament that she had once found exciting. But he had always been searching for something, some great grounding or levelling influence. And although he had clearly made his choice, B'Elanna had yet to be convinced that Kathryn Janeway could truly be this type of influence for anyone.

This was not for lack of affection, for B`Elanna loved her former Captain, but at heart she perceived Kathryn to be very much as she was herself – headstrong, and pathologically independent. As she slowly pieced together the reasons for Chakotay's deception and betrayal of Starfleet, B'Elanna could not help but feel the absurdity of his situation. For nearly a decade he had been trying to help this woman, and for exactly that amount of time she had shut him out whenever she really needed him. B'Elanna could not entirely imagine what going through another one of these torturous circles would do to him. For a time, at least, it had seemed that he had moved on from her, but evidently there had been no lasting tonic. Were there some things, perhaps, from which it were impossible to truly move forward? Were there certain bonds, as painful and fruitless as they might be, that simply could not be broken with anger and with the passage of time? B`Elanna wondered whether the long months of living in the desperate environs of Apocrypha had altered Kathryn's perception, and made her perhaps more able to distinguish between her enemies and her friends.

B'Elanna's own life, of late, had been a maelstrom of confusion and regret. As much as she loved her child, she felt somehow unsuited for motherhood, and as a result she frequently flew into rages, and felt herself clinging to the past. This was coupled with such a tremendous sense of guilt that she often turned on herself in anger for being so contrary and easily dissatisfied. She had been ambivalent about Starfleet upon her return from _Voyager_, and now committing to a career in that organization seemed unthinkable. Yet in the harsh light of day, she could see she did not really have anywhere else to go. More than anything, she needed a new rebellion, and at the last instant she had found one – if only Chakotay had not been so secretive, she thought, they might have worked together from the beginning.

Gathering her belongings, she rose to go, certain of her course of action. The discarded computer pad on Chakotay`s desk bore the words _You__Have__a__Friend._

PAGE BREAK

The message may have been cryptic enough, but B`Elanna had never forgotten about the tall woman in racing clothes who had been so eager to speak with Chakotay. Once again she found herself in the heart of San Francisco`s proletarian district, gazing distractedly into a club soda she was hoping could pass for liquor. As it turned out, she did not have long to wait. The woman called Cassandra, with her black racing gloves and a large scar obscuring the right side of her face, sauntered confidently into the bar and ordered her drink of choice with only a pointed glance. Presently she noticed B`Elanna, and her lips curled slightly upward, although it could not be said of her that she was smiling.

"I've been waiting a long time for you, " she said in her low, slightly rattling tone. Then she took her bottle by the neck and walked past B'Elanna to the back area of the bar, which was all but deserted.

"So I was right then, " said B'Elanna, following, "you're Chakotay's friend."

The woman turned, and looked at B'Elanna with mild surprise. "Friend, " she repeated. "Well I wouldn`t say so. " She tilted her head to the side. "But if friendship is what you're after, I can make you a deal. That`s what most friendships are, after all, or at least, the good ones. "

B'Elanna frowned. "I thought you were going to give me information. "

The woman threw her head back, in a gesture mimicking laughter. "You all seem to think that because we know some fancy tricks at the helm of a ship, and aren`t afraid of a little harmless fun, that we somehow have the inside track on the future of the world. Well, I hate to put a dent in your latinum, Lieutenant, but you couldn`t be farther wrong. One day you'll come to think of us as we think of ourselves; as victims of an unjust society that creates and destroys its own participants at will. But there is a terrible danger in that, because of course one day even the weakest victims will revolt, and we are by no means the weakest. And that, Lieutenant, is where your friendship comes in. "

"I'm not sure I follow. "

Cassandra's eyes roamed assertively around the room, then she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a tiny container filled with blue liquid. "What you're looking at, " she said, bringing her face very close to B'Elanna's, "is the holy grail. That is, if you happen to be a Borg hybrid created by Starfleet to engineer the perfect soldier. It's what keeps us alive, makes us who we are. But apparently some of the big guns at Administration weren`t too happy with our side projects, and they've decided to cut us off. Oh, I see. You've heard those rumors about our little death wish. Well it`s all true, we don't mind it terribly – except that we believe everyone has a right to live and die on their own terms. That is why Apocrypha is waging an all-out terror on Starfleet, and we won`t stop until everyone gets just about as much death as they're looking for. I can't tell you what happened to Seven of Nine, and I can't tell you where you can find your precious Captain Janeway, either. But I can keep you and your friends safe from harm, if you do a small favor for me and my friends. "

"And what would that be, exactly? " 

The woman took hold of B'Elanna's hand, so roughly that B'Elanna stiffened. She pressed the vial into B'Elanna's hand, and held her fist shut.

"_Find__out__what__the__hell__this__is_, " Cassandra whispered.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

As soon as Kathryn stepped into the vessel, she knew that this was wrong, that in fact this was not what her instinct had promised. She had meant, in some badly planned way, to seek out the Queen, but this was clearly not the right way at all and she felt a pang of fear overtake her. Never had she been so impulsive, so unabashedly reckless with her own life and the lives of others. But she had come this far, and believed she could not turn away.

The cube was dead in the water, and most of its outer hull had been blown off. As Kathryn stepped gingerly on the cold metallic floor she felt it begin to collapse, and she quickly moved to the wall and clung to it for dear life. Seven had indicated that they should split up, and she had lost sight of her now, the only light being generated from the few empty alcoves that were still functioning. Kathryn fumbled in the pockets of her Apocrypha-issue clothing until she located a flashlight. The thought occurred to her that no matter how free she might fancy herself, she seemed to always be wearing someone's uniform.

This eerie, deserted ship was a fixture from her nightmares, and she half expected an army of drones to punch through the wall and devour her alive, ripping out her humanity and all that made her unique, replacing her soft skin with pieces of machinery, removing her will to fight. Hadn't Seven tried very hard to make her believe that was what she wanted? If somehow, in the dark corners of her mind she sought the blissful relief of assimilation, she attributed this to a general human weakness. And she believed the Borg incapable of existing without this weakness, without the secret desire of individuals to be overtaken by a force stronger than themselves. This was how so many senseless wars were fought, and how humans had for centuries embraced prejudice and intolerance. Kathryn scaled the wall and repeated to herself, "Not today."

She could hear a dull hum that, as she continued to scale the wall of the vessel, partitioned itself into distinct voices, and grew slowly louder. She turned the corner, and shone the pocket lamp on the floor.

Six or seven men in Starfleet uniforms, bent over the bodies of dead drones, extracting pieces of metal from their faces and hands. Kathryn's stomach turned. But they had seen her, it was too late, and her fault for alerting them. One of the men's faces was the very picture of animal rage; if he could have strangled her then and there with his bare hands he surely would have. She turned on her heel and tore out of the room. She made her way in the dark from then on, having learned from her mistake. Apocrypha's weapons were crude and no match for Starfleet phasers. Still she withdrew the small rifle she was packing. Phaser fire struck her shoulder, and she collapsed momentarily. From the ground, she shifted her weight and fired back in the direction of the shot, but she could not tell if her assailant had been hit. She jumped to her feet and continued running. She ran all the way down the corridor until she had no choice but to turn, and then she took a chance and slipped into one of the deserted regeneration alcoves. She could not hear any footsteps or phaser fire behind her, so she took another chance and illuminated the flashlight. There were drones in the individual regeneration chambers, but they were all dead. Catching sight of an empty chamber, she soundlessly lifted herself into it, shut her flashlight, and waited.

She had no plan at all, except to eventually locate Seven and escape. She no longer feared assimilation, as this was not a realistic threat, but she knew that these men, these Starfleet officers, would much rather kill her now than go to the trouble of hunting her down later. Kathryn was painfully aware of the proximity in which she stood to the two decomposing bodies on either side of her chamber. Something struck her then, the idea that she had perhaps been looking at this problem from the wrong angle. How had this ship been damaged, and how had all of these drones died? Were the Borg going so far as to sacrifice their own for the sake of building the Ultimate Stafleet Officer prototype; and if so, to what benefit to the collective? The only thing she could be sure of was that she had to access living representatives of the collective; attempting in any way to get answers out of Starfleet was a death wish worthy of the Cassandras.

Kathryn stiffened her muscles, keeping herself at alert attention. She tried to focus her mind on the task at hand – escape – but the ever-present doubt that she would live past the next few minutes threatened to weaken her mental resolve. She had been so sure of her instincts, yet they had led her here, to this ship of the damned, to be persecuted by her own men. What had Chakotay said to her about her so-called transformation, the increased intuitive abilities she fervently believed she possessed? _Chakotay…_ Her blood ran cold, thinking of the cruel things they had said and done to one another. She could not remember anything else, only that, the echoes of two lives wasted on miscommunication and regret. She had let him down so many times, and now, standing amongst the dead and so close to succumbing to death herself, she was letting him down one final time. Her defences fell, and she began slowly to give in to the atmosphere of decay around her, feeling much a part of it.

She was not sure what force still lay within her that, when the Starfleet man came into the room and stood, momentarily unaware beside her chamber, she charged at him, kicking him down to the ground and rendering him unconscious with her weapon. Knowing that he would have been followed, she immediately pointed her weapon at the entranceway and fired, before the two other men behind had a chance to ready their phasers. She put her weapon away and took both of theirs, feeling immediately calmed by the feel of the familiar Starfleet artillery in her hands. And she resumed her aimless, frantic run through the crumbling corridors of the Borg ship, begging some unseen power to allow her to find a way out. Phaser fire struck the back of her leg, but she did not fall. She fired back, and when she turned her head the next shot grazed the side of her face, and she was thrown against the wall. She used the impact to propel herself forward and continued to run. The shots continued, and she heard the rumbling footsteps coming closer. There were more than six or seven men, she realized, they had been scattered all over the ship. She saw a dim light on the end of the hall and staggered towards it. She was hopeful and desperate, and this desperation turned to sheer horror as she ran into the barrel of a rifle aimed squarely between her eyes.

"Drop your weapon!"

Kathryn's pulse raced, and she felt she could not trust her eyes.

"It's me! I'm alone. "

"I said, drop your weapon Kathryn."

Seven's voice was cold and detached, somewhat reminiscent of her drone days but the tone was lower, and more authoritative. In one hand she held the rifle, which Kathryn recognized as one of Margaret Thorpe's prized possessions, and in the other a small explosive device that had already been armed.

Kathryn did not stop to process this information. She only wondered, with the weapons she had at her disposal, how she could save Seven. Could she, or could she not, fire her phaser fast enough to destroy the explosive device. Seven's eyes were razor-sharp; she would fire as soon as Kathryn raised her arm. There had to be another way.

But Seven was speaking above the noise in Kathryn's mind, oblivious. "This missile, " she said, will detonate and destroy the ship in thirty seconds. If you make a move to fire on me, I will kill you. Please don't think I won't, Kathryn. You have meant the world to me, but I will kill you where you stand if you try to stop me. This is for the greater good. We can't stand by as they destroy us. I am only doing what I know is right. "

Kathryn stared as the seconds on the explosive device counted down. "Seven," she breathed, her voice cracking, "it doesn't have to be this way. Please, let's talk about this. I cannot believe this is what you came here to do. Disarm that device and let's just talk about it. _Please,_ Seven. "

For a moment, Seven's eyes seemed to falter, and one might have suspected that she was reconsidering, but she was only wondering why it was taking Kathryn so long to realize she was in earnest. She raised the arm that held the explosive device, and stared at Kathryn with a look that was at once pleading and full of violent rage.

"Run! " she screamed.

Only minutes earlier, Kathryn would have almost gladly relinquished all hope, but she, too, had felt the power of this greater good and was no longer willing to let it die. For so many years, she had been obsessed with saving Seven, first from the collective, and then from her own agony of being caught between two worlds, unable to be free of the Borg and equally unable to embrace humanity. But in a split second Kathryn understood that she could never save this woman, and so she did run, tears of pure grief streaming down her face and Starfleet officers on her heel, and in a moment she felt the rumble of the explosive device hitting the floor, and she heard the officers fall, and she felt the walls collapsing inward. How, in the midst of this terror, she was able to retrace her steps to the shuttle bay she would never know. But she did reach it, and with shaking hands she started her engines and hurled _Iolanthe_ into space, as the Borg vessel blew to pieces before her eyes.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

"Well?" B'Elanna demanded impatiently, pacing the length of the science laboratory, and back, for probably the twentieth time.

"Well," replied Ensign Kim, "all of this walking around you've been doing isn`t actually making me work any faster, funnily enough."

"Harry," she reproached him, "you've lost your edge. Back on _Voyager_ with Janeway breathing down your neck you would have had this finished in an hour."

"Be that as it may," said Kim, "I'll still have it done faster than anyone else you might have hired. Or, if you'd like to test that theory, I can just –"

"No, no, that`s quite all right, stay where you are. Oh, I'm sorry, Harry, I`m just scared to death for her."

He frowned. "For who?"

"The woman who was breathing down your neck for seven years. I'm afraid she might have gotten herself into a mess she can't escape from."

"Àre you doubting the Harry Houdini of the Delta Quadrant?" Kim glanced into B'Elanna's uncomprehending eyes. "It's an expression of Tom's." 

B'Elanna quickly looked away. "Oh, I see. Twentieth century trivia, right?"

"Actually, Harry Houdini goes all the way back to the late nineteenth century. He was a brilliant escape artist, quite possibly the greatest in human history. His most famous trick was called the Chinese Water Torture Cell, in which he was suspended upside-down in a locked cabinet filled to the brim with water."

"Fascinating."

"But he never had to navigate a wormhole or wrestle with the temporal prime directive."

"No," said B'Elanna distractedly, "I don't suppose he did."

"That's why I never worry about Captain Janeway," said Kim, still displaying the misplaced optimism of youth. B'Elanna felt a momentary pang of regret for having brought him into this. She sincerely did not want to be the one to tell him that Starfleet was not incorruptible, nor his hero invincible.

"Listen, Harry…"

But Ensign Kim had held up one of his hands, and was staring intently into the screen on his workstation. "Hang on a minute, B'Elanna. I think I`ve got what you're looking for."

"You've identified the substance?"

"I think so. I`ll have to run a few more tests to be sure, but –"

"What is it, Harry?"

A sigh escaped Ensign Kim's lips. He had not particularly missed this dimension of B'Elanna's workplace personality. "From what I can tell, what you've got here is some type of biologic agent, most likely a virus. But my molecular analysis indicates that it`s been modified. Someone has been synthesizing it in an artificial environment."

"Then what is its natural environment?"

Kim shook his head. "I don't know. So much has been done to this thing that I'm having trouble identifying its unadulterated form. If I knew a name for it, even a generic name, I could try to match it with something in the Starfleet database."

"Psychic Sisters."

"What?"

B'Elanna had stopped pacing, and her eyes were wide and unblinking. "It didn't occur to me until just this second," she said, "but months ago, the same woman that I met today told Chakotay about a drug called Psychic Sisters. I didn't make the connection at first, because she described it in a completely different way, she offered it to him, said she knew where to get it. The same day, Tom's father died, and Chakotay believed that he had been poisoned by that drug. Cassandra, led me to believe that whatever is in the vial is what keeps the Borg hybrids alive, and that somehow they'd been cut off, and that Starfleet was responsible."

"Borg hybrids? B'Elanna, what are you talking about?"

"What if this substance and the Psychic Sisters drug are one and the same? That would mean the same thing that killed Owen Paris and that may be affecting Captain Janeway, is keeping these women alive. Harry, search for Psychic Sisters in the database and see what comes up."

Wordlessly, Kim did as he was told, although he could hardly understand why. A moment later, the screen on his workstation faded to black.

"I don't understand," said Kim. "I've been locked out of the system."

"That means," replied his grim companion, "that we have to get out of here. But it looks like I was right. We'll have to find another way."

Far away on the marina, the man who called himself Balthasar checked his watch again and grimaced. He was not acting according to plan, and this bothered him immensely, as it made him ever fearful for his own life, and the lives he was trying, most likely in vain, to protect. When he saw B'Elanna's thin frame approaching, he relaxed visibly.

"You received my message."

"So I guess," she said coldly, "that you're Chakotay's friend. It seems I had you confused with someone else a little earlier today."

"That should teach you to go looking into things that don't concern you."

"The safety of my friends will always concern me. I suppose you know Chakotay is missing. I'm not sure how that speaks of your friendship."

"Chakotay is not missing," scoffed the diminutive man. "He simply doesn't know where to look for answers, so he is doing what is predictable of his character to do, which is to seek out Janeway. He would have done that no matter what I told him. Just as you only acted in an utterly typical fashion today, when you had a flash of insight and immediately put it in writing in a Starfleet laboratory. You are impulsive, but then you can't really be blamed for it."

"I can't tell if that's racism, or if you just don't like me."

He cocked an eyebrow, but displayed no other reaction. "I asked you to meet me here because I want to tell you to stay away from this. It doesn't concern you, and if you try to involve yourself, you'll most likely get killed, or get someone else killed. Do you understand me? "

"I understand perfectly, but I'm afraid I can't walk away, not just now. "

"Could you really live with yourself if you were responsible for ending the life of young Ensign Kim? "

B'Elanna narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to say this once. The Cassandras are launching an offensive on Starfleet, and they don't seem to me to be all that concerned about casualties. I have been offered protection in exchange for information on a drug called Psychic Sisters. And I intend to get that information sir, whether you help me or not. "

Balthasar had turned his back, and was walking slowly away. "I can't help you. "

For a moment B'Elanna stood in dumbfounded silence, watching him go, but then anger overtook her. "You can't help me, or you don't want to risk your own neck? "

Balthasar stopped in his tracks, though he did not turn around. "I have nothing for you, " he said. "Find Peg O'Shaughnessy. She's the only one who knows. She's the only one who was there. But keep in mind that this war will be fought inspite of us all. Fear your friends, B'Elanna, and not your enemies; it's the only way to survive. "


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

She had not, for one second, been able to put the terrible image from her mind. She could find no relief from the haunting memory of Seven, standing like a sentinel with a bomb in her hand, ready to kill and die for some unimaginable cause. She racked her brain over and over again for an indication of something she could have said or done differently, to make Seven put the weapon down and run away with her. Kathryn had always been a person who believed in trials; she had thought it character-building to continually test one's own strength, intelligence and resolve, but finally, and uncharacteristically, she was beginning to feel she had suffered enough. She felt that if the Starfleet men hated her this much, they should have killed her, and spared her the torture of a devastating memory that would never grow dim.

Kathryn soon lost count of the hours she spent on the deserted planet, without written or spoken contact with anyone. There were moments of restlessness, wherein she wrestled with her freedom and her responsibility, her rebellion from Starfleet and the almost obsessive attachment that remained. And then there were darker moments, when the voices of Seven and the Cassandras spoke to her, calling her to some altered state of consciousness, akin with death, pleading with her to relinquish her hope for humanity. She felt that these women had put her in contact with some primal, contrary part of her nature of which she had never been consciously aware. She saw the blue river, now, as twofold, a representation of life and nourishment but also as a place for abandonment. She had always loved to swim but now she could truly imagine losing her life to the river, and the thought was not as abhorrent as it ought. Likewise her vessel, a means of escape, survival, and a weapon of war, could equally be considered a quick and efficient method of self-destruction, as Cassandra Weatherfield had so memorably demonstrated. How could the thought of crashing into a neutron star at a million miles an hour be appealing? And yet it had been, at least to one desperately unhappy woman, who had faced prejudice and hatred from the people who created her, and could not find love or understanding anywhere. Kathryn knew that she had to fight, but somewhere in her mind she was beginning to compare herself to these Borg hybrids, feeling herself to be very much a creation of a group of people who had turned on her and forced her away from her home.

More than anything, she was unanchored, and afraid. She had told Chakotay at their last meeting in a Starfleet holding room that she had changed, and perhaps she had, but the spiritual transformation she had anticipated had not come. Indeed she felt connected to her own raw instincts and emotions. But this newfound self-awareness did not generate any greater wisdom, rather it made her feel as if she were losing her logic. And so she held onto it in any way that she could, clinging to it as if, perhaps, it were already a thing of the past, doomed to slip away. And Seven, always Seven, remained with her, broken and destroyed, loving her and hating her, and telling her that everything lost was irretrievable.

It was perhaps due only to luck that through this torment there remained in Kathryn a willpower and bravery that were to be envied by all who knew her. She might have been, or believed herself to be, a Starfleet soldier, but then there was that other, more powerful part of her, the daredevil and the independent, a keen scientist who could determine the truth, and who and what was worth saving, on her own. She could still breathe in the cold air and it filled her lungs, and in rare times she allowed herself to feel gratitude for her life, for the blood that still pounded in her veins. And she was stripped to her deepest bones, and remembered her spirit guide, and Chakotay, and their cryptic and exciting conversations aboard _Voyager_, and all of the distant things that she had generally pleaded with herself to forget.

In her old life, she had found great solace in the idea that she would one day bring her people home. She could not help but find it somewhat ironic that the defining mission of her career had been to return to a place that had become as treacherous as any alien world in the Delta Quadrant. She had learned the art of solitary leadership on _Voyager_, but she learned true solitude here; for she had no followers, and no friends, only the wild hope that what had gone so terribly wrong in the world could one day, through judgment and perseverance, be set right.

She was standing as she often did on the pier, when she heard the water stir unnaturally. Her eyes scanned the river until she perceived a boat in the distance. She knew it would not be Apocrypha, as they were coming by ship and knew on which side of the river to land. Fearing the worst, she retreated into the rock cave that she used for her living quarters, and set her weapon at the ready. She chose the gun she had stolen from the Starfleet man during the raid on the Borg vessel. For a time she heard nothing, and thought perhaps that the traveller had retreated, but then there were footsteps approaching, and she knew the danger was near. Her quarters were not well concealed; if someone were looking for her he would find her quickly in the flat expanse of sand and grass and occasional trees. She decided it was best not to let him find her where she waited; rather, she would attack first and hope to catch him unawares. She waited several minutes until the footsteps were close, and then she took her chance, stepping out of the cave with one authoritative move, brandishing her weapon at arm's length.

"Stay where you are! "


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

_She looked so sweet from her two bare feet_

_To the sheen of her bright red hair._

_Such a coaxing elf, sure I shook myself_

_For to see I was really there._

Kathryn adjusted her mark, having judged the stranger to be only slightly to the right of where he actually stood. Her heart froze as her great fear was realized – she stood face to face, albeit at some distance, with a tall, broad-shouldered, angry looking man wearing a Starfleet uniform. Could one of the raiders have somehow escaped Seven's attack on the Borg ship? Or worse, could the corrupt administrators out of San Francisco have become aware of her efforts and come to bring her to justice?

What her racing thoughts had failed to grasp was that this man was clearly alone, and unarmed. Noticing her weapon, he raised his hands in surrender.

"Thank you very much for not shooting!" he called to her rather casually.

Kathryn squinted. She could not make out his face in the sun's glare, but the voice was one she would recognize anywhere.

"_Chakotay?_ "

"I wasn't aware that this is the way people say hello nowadays! It's a little impersonal, but I guess I'll have to get used to it. "

Kathryn let out her breath in frustration. She had half a mind to keep her rifle where it was, but, staying her paranoia, replaced it. Her eyes darted quickly toward the lake.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

He dropped his hands, and moved toward her. Finally she saw the features on his face, his coal-black eyes and his tattoo glinting in the sunlight. "I came to find you. I wanted to tell you that I've kept my commission with Starfleet."

She had a strong desire to stare at him as he came closer, to capture the memory of him one last time, but she fought it off as she could not afford this luxury. "Yes, that much I can see," she said coldly, and turned on her heel.

He pursued her, and took hold of her arm. "No! I'm a spy," he said. "I've been working from the inside, gathering information about the Ultimate Starfleet Officer project."

She stopped moving and faced him, and her face turned deadly pale. "Do you mean to tell me that you've convinced these men of your loyalty, and that you've taken a shuttlecraft out here without them knowing about it?" When he didn't answer, she grabbed his arm and began marching toward the lake.

"Kathryn!"

"You have to get out of here. Now. You have no idea what kind of danger you're in. Chakotay, they'll kill you. I may never know why, but these men are out for my blood and they have given me their promise that they will kill anyone who tries to help me. Don't say anything, just take your ship and go. Maybe you can make it back before you arouse suspicion. Erase your ship's logs, destroy any evidence linking you to me or to this planet. Chakotay, there's no time, please hurry. "

She had her hands on his shoulders, urging him to go but he refused to budge. "Kathryn, " he said, steadying her, "No one has followed me, and there is no way any of them can track my whereabouts, given that my comm badge is conveniently floating somewhere in the San Francisco Bay and with any luck will soon drift into the Pacific. What is this about? "

"I won't do it, Chakotay. You can say anything you want, but I won't let anyone else come to a bad end because of me. "

"Anyone else?"

Kathryn's eyes grew dim, and she looked vaguely ahead, at nothing in particular. "Seven of Nine. She – she altered her physiology, so that the Ultimate Starfleet Officer couldn't get to her. Apocrypha recruited her to be my flight partner, and we intercepted some of the Starfleet men aboard a Borg vessel. " She paused. "Seven destroyed the ship. She had me at gunpoint, and she wouldn't listen. Apocrypha is coming for me at daybreak to survey the debris, but there is no conceivable way she is still alive. "

She did not want to see the sympathy brimming in Chakotay's eyes. "Kathryn, I know how much she meant to you, but you can't blame yourself for this. Seven did what she did because of the Ultimate Starfleet Officer, and she probably thought she had no other choice. In fact, I'm sure she didn`t. "`

Kathryn looked at him deeply, her eyes searching his for a comprehension he was not sure he could offer. "Everyone chooses, Chakotay, " she said sadly. "We do very few things in this life for which we can't hold ourselves responsible. I made my choice a long time ago; I told myself that for better or for worse, I would fight for what I knew was right, that I would stand behind my principles and uphold them to the best of my ability. I didn't know that I was sentencing myself to cause suffering when I had wanted to prevent it. And so I've locked myself away in this ivory tower of logic, and moral fortitude, and ideology, when secretly I've never felt more afraid. "

It was very rare that Kathryn had ever admitted any vulnerability to Chakotay. She seemed, to him, to be ever loathe to describe a fear or worry or anything that might make her seem less of a leader. Chakotay had always found this to be not only irritating but unrealistic, for a leader who truly had no fears or doubts could hardly succeed. But he had let her keep up this façade for as many years as he had known her, and now that it had seemed to suddenly drop, perhaps in a moment of negligence, he found himself at a complete loss as to how to react or what to say. His eyes wandered over her pale face, the scar on her temple and her sun-scorched auburn hair, that was much longer than it had been when last he saw her.

She had most likely caught him staring, and he reddened, and quickly reached into his sack of belongings to withdraw the PADD that the man called Balthasar had given him.

"Here, " he said quietly. "Maybe this will help. "

Reluctantly, she glanced back at the river, and finally gave in, leading him back along the shore. They paused at a clearing not far away from the place where she slept. Chakotay stood over her, and she knelt down by a slim tree and examined the PADD.

"What does this mean? " she asked, looking up at him with inquisitve eyes.

He sighed. "To be honest, I'm not sure. I was contacted by a man, who calls himself a friend. From what I can gather, he has some association with Starfleet but he is working to prevent O'Shaughnessy and his men from succeeding in their project. I think he's afraid for his life, so he didn't tell me very much, he only gave me this. "

"It looks like a map of some kind, or a blueprint. But it isn't regulation. Maybe it's a non-Federation ship. "

"He also had a message for you. "

"A message? "

"He said that the only way to stop the Ultimate Starfleet Officer project is for you to reclaim your captaincy. He said that one way or another, you've got to return to Starfleet."

Kathryn frowned. "But how is that possible? I'll be court martialled if I show my face in San Francisco. "

"I know. "

"Chakotay, why do you find this man convincing? What makes you believe anything he said? "

"Well, " said Chakotay ruefully, "he was the only one who could tell me where to find you. "

Kathryn let the PADD fall, and she gazed at him, long and hard through half-closed eyes, until he began to feel uncomfortable.

"All of those things," began Kathryn, speaking very slowly, as if reasoning aloud, "that you said to me, in the Starfleet holding room where we last saw each other. You, Chakotay, looked me dead in the eyes, and you said that you couldn't follow me anymore, that it was too difficult. You said this was my fight, and that you needed to let me go. And you said -"

Chakotay could not contain his laughter. "Kathryn, there was Starfleet intelligence outside every wall of that cell. I couldn't have said anything else. It would have been a dead giveaway right then and there. " He shook his head, marvelling at how far he had taken this deception. "Did you really believe that after all these years, and after what we've been through together, that I'd just chuck everything I believe in and abandon my best friend in the world? "

She gave no reply, but then she rose from her spot on the ground, her eyes bright with confusion and relief. "Oh Chakotay, " she whispered softly, and she threw her arms about his neck.

He was surprised for a quick moment, and then he held her in return, his strong arms enfolding her, his hands lightly touching her hair. She clasped her hands together, clinging to his neck like a child, and his heart throbbed at the innocence of this touch, something he thought he would never feel. There had been so many harsh words spoken between them, so much anger and vitriol and misunderstanding, and yet through it all, by some miracle he really was her best friend. He could feel that she was crying, and he allowed the tears to sting his own eyes, and fall, and in that moment he waited, and allowed himself to be at peace. Presently she pulled back, only slightly, and tilted her head to look at him. She quietly searched his face, and then she leaned forward shyly, and kissed his mouth.

There was no calculation in this gesture. It was simply as it should have been all those years in the past, the single act of friendship deepening into love. She did not have to say that she had always loved him this way, because he knew and had always known. There was no rush anymore, and so he played with her beautiful lips the way he had always wanted to, and she opened her mouth wider at the sensation. His hands touched her tear-stained face, her hair, the back of her neck, and as he touched her body through the Apocrypha-issued clothing he felt the blood coursing through him, and the full strength of his desire for her. She kissed him again and again, because she could not go on any longer without kissing him, and she pressed her body against him in a silent plea. He found himself wanting to say a million words to her, and then instantly forgetting them all. They played in his mind like music, and seemed to follow the rhythmic movement of her lips upon his, and yet he could never be sure, really, of what he wanted to say. And then he thought somehow that he had surely said it, years ago, standing at a crossroads on New Earth, or in a bunker during the Second World War, or at any other moment in history. For although their small lives would last for but a moment, he felt with a conviction he could not describe that they had always existed in this way, he and his Kathryn, as every pair of lovers throughout time that had ever fought for their love, and lost it, and found it again.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Author's Note: This chapter is rated MA due to sexual content.

_At the crossroads fair I'll be surely there  
>And I'll dress in my Sunday clothes<br>And I'll try sheep's eyes, and deludhering lies  
>On the heart of the nut-brown rose.<em>

He had become, in the span of a few mere instants, obsessed with her lips, and the feel of her mouth. He wondered, in an impossible haze of confusion and lust, what it would have been like to kiss her slowly, or leisurely, without this desperate buildup of desire in his body, that made him come undone, and grasp at the fabric of her tunic as if to tear it to shreds, and push his tongue ever deeper into her mouth. But the way that she brought his head down, the way that she received him, was enough to drive him utterly insane. Was this really Kathryn Janeway, the woman he had loved for a decade, in this very moment in

his arms? Her eyes, indeed, reflected quite the same aquamarine brilliance that they always had, and yet the familiar look of guardedness was gone. He wondered if he could read her – and in a moment he felt he could, and then his heart began to beat in terror of the unknown, and he wasn't sure he dared. All of those fantasies, that had left him drained and exhausted and never quite satisfied all those nights in his cabin on Voyager, came flooding back – and yet, more than anything, he wanted the fantasy to be hers.

He stood behind her, and, lifting her hair, gently unfastened the blue tunic, so that it slid from her body and to the ground. He moved his hands from her shoulders, down her back, and onto her bare abdomen. He felt her stiffen momentarily, and then she lifted her arms, and raked her fingers through his hair. He bent his head, and tasted her neck, her shoulder, biting at the tough fabric of her black bra strap. She moved impatiently against him, arching her back, and by now he had no doubt that she could feel his aching hardness pressed into her backside. Surrendering to the moment, his hand dove below her

stomach and invaded her black tights. When his hand made contact with her core she moaned, and bucked against him, and twisted her head back to drive her tongue into his mouth. He began to thrust his fingers insistently in and out of her sex, and as she groaned in pleasure his hips ground against her buttocks. The feel of her against his hand was almost unbearably arousing, and he swore to himself that he would not let himself come this way. But he was losing control, he pushed her head back and placed his other hand at the back of her neck, grabbing a fistful of her hair as his thrusts became more ragged. Perhaps out of the same fear, she broke their position and turned around, staring at him with eyes as wide as saucers. Her hair was disheveled, and she was breathing heavily, her large, half-exposed breasts rising and falling with her breath. He had never seen anything so erotic in his life. Kathryn undid the buttons of his jacket, and she lifted his gray Starfleet shirt over his head. Without breaking eye contact, she reached for his pants and palmed his throbbing erection through the

fabric. But he caught her wrists, raised her arms once more and laced his fingers with hers. She laughed, and let him have his way.

He could barely believe he was hearing the sound of her laughter, guileless as it had been on those rare occasions on Voyager when something had suddenly struck her as funny, and she had forgotten to maintain her captain's composure. But there was no mask of regret now, and her eyes shone into his as purely and honestly as if she were making him a promise. Whatever it was, he believed it, still he wanted to move slower, wanted to give her this moment as a promise of his own, that he would love her as patiently and as long as he had waited

for her.

He sank to his knees and, pulling down the thin tights, began to kiss her stomach, her hips, and finally the place where his touch was most anticipated. She shuddered and rocked against him, weaving her hands through his hair, and moaning as his lips and tongue performed their blissful invasion. She thrust against him, begging him silently to bring her the release she needed. He had begun slowly, caressing and teasing her, until he understood her urgency, and began to explore her more intensely, massaging her clitoris with his hand as his tongue rose and fell inside her. In time his insistent ministrations pushed her over the edge, and she cried out his name, letting go all control and allowing her legs to falter and buckle as she came.

He rose to steady her, pulling her tights back over her stomach, and she immediately fell into his arms, lifting her legs around his waist. She buried her face in his neck, kissing him lightly as he began to carry her toward shelter.

It would have been, for most people, a terribly unsatisfactory living arrangement. But Kathryn Janeway was Kathryn Janeway, and she would make her bed in a narrow cave in the wilderness if it served whatever personal crusade she was in the moment defending. He set her down on the bare earth, and she continued to cling to his neck and kiss him absently as he arranged the mess of clothing scraps and blankets she had available to make her bed more suitable for two.

When he was finished he turned his attention back to her. He smiled into her crystal clear eyes and released her breasts from their lacy black confines. He pressed her hard against his body, and her bare breasts felt so unspeakably wonderful crushed against his chest. They stood there for a moment, her head buried in his shoulder, his hands roaming all over her body while her small white hands remained clasped tightly around his neck. He could not help, in some way, but compare the reality of touching her to the countless flights of fancy that had sustained him for the past ten years. He had always imagined her body as soft and rounded underneath the shapeless Starfleet uniform; and he was surprised to find her taut and muscular, the indents of her stomach muscles and the firm strength of her thighs providing a sharp contrast to his old ideas of her. He pulled back briefly, lifted her chin and held it in his hands. He stared into her face, and suddenly saw those months of pain and solitude reflected back; her harsh days and nights, the way that she had trained for this new task of hers, relentlessly and without a word, becoming a lone warrior instead of the leader she had once been. He saw, without having to be told, how agonizing it had been to cut ties with her past, abandon Starfleet and start anew. Her eyes burned with that bravery he had always loved in her, and yet he knew she was terrified, not as much of death or suffering, as of giving herself to him.

He lay her down, and slowly removed the rest of her clothing. He was caught off guard at the sight of her, and he wanted to continue staring just so that he could believe she was real, but he didn't want to make her uncomfortable either. Instead of bending over her, he lay at her side. He wanted to make her feel that this could last as long as she wanted it to. He kissed her pale shoulder, and ran his hand lightly over her stomach. She covered his hand with hers, looked deeply into his eyes and slowly moved his touch lower. He found himself once again stroking the folds of her sex, and it felt so natural, like the elemental feeling of effortless pleasure he could only remember in dreams. She moved her open mouth over his, and their tongues remained entangled in a kiss that never really began and never ended. Again she reached for the belt at his waist, and this time he did not try to stop her. She unclasped it deftly, and reached down inside to finally touch his aching manhood. She ran her hand along the length of it, but then withdrew, and urging him to lie on his back she began to kiss his chest, and then his stomach, and before he could register what was happening, she had taken the entire length of him into her mouth. He gasped at the sensation, and as she began to move up and down his back arched in ecstasy. He tangled his fingers in her hair, and his breath came in ragged bursts as she sucked and licked him from base to tip and felt him tighten and grow harder inside her mouth. He could feel his orgasm building, and he bit down hard on his lip to keep it at bay.

"Wait – Kath –" were the only words he managed, and her sapphirine eyes locked with his. She released him, and smiled in her terribly familiar, half-sweet and half-devilish way. He had perhaps last seen that smile on the bridge of _Voyager_, when she was wearing her uniform and most likely had her hands at her hips in that combative pose. She was not daring him to make love to her now, but there was always something of the competitor in her, and for the first time, as he gently lay her down underneath him, he understood that she saw their love as a challenge, as a test of courage and will, not only for herself, but for both of them.

He kissed her mouth deeply, and as he lost himself in the sweet softness of her lips and tongue, she guided his throbbing manhood inside her. Their pulses raced in that moment of connection, with the knowledge that this was something they could never take back and that would alter their lives forever. A thousand thoughts flew through his mind, would she like the feel of him, would he be able to guess or intuit what she wanted, would she come to regret this when it was over. But then he remembered that he had only to look, and touch, and respond, and that all of the answers to his questions were there before him.

He was amazed, and elated, to find that a similar set of questions did not seem to be occupying her mind. She looked at him with a combination of curiosity and restless desire, and as he began to penetrate her, she moaned and stretched her hands above her head, arching her back and making him want to devour her breasts. Some part of him had wanted this to be slow and tender, but when she reached for him and raked her fingers along his spine and raised her legs, begging him to enter her even more deeply, he lost sight of every inclination to prudence. She met him thrust for thrust, moaning as his thick, rigid member blissfully invaded her core over and over. Listening to the sound of her low voice catching and moaning as he drove deeper into her was like an elixir. He kissed her wildly, letting his newfound addiction to her mouth and lips fuel his ardent ministrations. His heart was pounding, and he felt his orgasm approaching and he knew he could do nothing to stave it off this time. But she wrapped her thighs around his waist, and when the kiss she was leaving on his shoulder turned deliciously painful, he knew she was ready too. Just as he felt her inner muscles begin to spasm around him, he let go, and with a cry released his seed into her body.

He could not remember when he had felt an orgasm this powerful, and he remained, nearly paralyzed for several moments riding the aftershock. He was afraid of crushing her with his weight, but the sensation of her small hands stroking his hair reassured him.

When he had come back to himself, he slowly shifted his weight to lie beside her. It occurred to him that barely a word had passed between them, and he found himself not wanting to break that silence now, and looking into her impossibly beautiful face, he felt that she did not want to break it either. Instead he gathered her into his arms. She pressed her body against his, and kissed his forehead, his mouth and his neck before settling her head into his chest. He brushed the hair away from her face, looking down at the tiny beads of sweat on her brow and the flush in her cheeks. He watched as her eyelashes began to flutter, and finally close. Gradually, her breathing became slower and more even. Only then, when he was sure she was asleep, did he rest his chin on her head and allow his tears to fall. His life, which had held questionable meaning for him up until now, was suddenly endowed with a significance he could have never fathomed; and yet he knew that if he were to die in that moment, he would be happy, and redeemed.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen The Cassandras` rebellion began at noon on a dreary Friday. Dark clouds littered the sky like so many piles of dirty laundry, and then the drone of the ships came bearing down over the Starfleet complex in downtown San Francisco. Within hours of the first hit, Starfleet mobilized, declaring a state of war and deploying its military ships to drive the Cassandras away from the ground. But the building that had been hit was a large administration annex that employed hundreds of officers. The casualties were many, and most survivors gravely injured.

_Voyager_`s Doctor, having spent the better part of his time since the ship`s return at the holographic arts center in New York City, was quite unaware of events of the recent past when he was summoned to San Francisco as part of an emergency medical team. As a matter of security, Starfleet did not disclose any details about the battle being fought, and the Doctor, rather customarily, was left to his own devices to imagine what was actually occurring. In truth, he had not practiced medicine in quite some time, and to return to it under these conditions was astonishing and somewhat disturbing. He pressed his colleagues for information, but they were all as ignorant. He was, however, privy to much whispered conversation about Captain Janeway, and her supposed dismissal from Starfleet, of which he simply could not conceive. But it was true that she was gone – he tried to look for her, if only to make sure that she hadn't been affected by the attack, but her office at Administration was no longer in existence. He was overwhelmed with work and had more wounded to treat than he could manage, yet this puzzling piece of information continued to plague him, and he wondered if was in any way related to the mysterious war that was threatening to overtake the city. He thought perhaps that he had been away for too long, and that once the emergency service was at an end he might do well to remain in California.

But this decision was not truly cemented until, witnessing his first ground raid from the Cassandras' offensive, a hundred pairs of deep-set hazel eyes marched past his triage unit with a deadly stare, and among them, one pair of blue eyes, round and wide and clear, and unmistakeable.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

It seemed to Kathryn that they made love a hundred times, or at least that she experienced her release a hundred times, like the waves crashing on the shore.

They sailed the river in his boat, the way she promised him they would that last day on New Earth before they were saved. So many times over the long years, she had relived that day and their last moments together. She had perhaps never been fully conscious of it, but she had promised herself to him in that second before her comm badge chirped _Voyager's _return, when she said to him, "_I'll have the river." _ They never would have that river on New Earth, but this one, she felt, was theirs alone, and just as beautiful.

She loved every part of his body; she could not believe that nature could have made a man like this. Every time she looked at him, she wanted him – and it was not enough to hold him, to wrap her arms around him and kiss his lips. She had to feel him inside of her, drawing out of her every ragged breath, every tortured cry until she was blissfully exhausted. If she could have accomplished the thing slowly she would have – if she could have learned his body the way she had learned his mind, over many days and nights of careful study. But all she had truly learned during this most recent phase of her life was fear. In one moment, the fear of never seeing him again had become greater than the older fear that had for so long kept them apart, and so this, finally, was the one she overcame.

There was nothing in the world more exciting than to feel his eyes on her, when she slipped off her clothes and jumped into the river; it was the way she had felt in another lifetime, that unearthly feeling of being watched, and of being wanted. In their first years on _Voyager _she had scarcely dared to hope that he wanted her. Most of the time she couldn't imagine that he saw her as anything other than an authority figure – but then she would feel that electric rush of his eyes on her back as she left the room, and it was all she could do to stop herself from turning around. She never did, not in seven years, and she had never had her confirmation. So this time, she did turn her head to look at him, and she saw his eyes, black with desire, staring at her body as if he could take her just by looking at her. It was enough to make her shiver, and she wanted him all over again, and had to have him – she had to feel his lower lip between her teeth, his tongue in her mouth, the throbbing readiness of his manhood pressed against her thigh until she guided him inside her.

He filled her so completely; with every motion he entered her more and more deeply. She so loved to be on top of him, to rock against that tremendous pressure until something shattered inside of her, and she cried out her orgasm and fell against him, her tangled hair falling all over his chest. And he would hold her in his arms, and she would feel his pounding heart, returning them to reality if only for a few brief minutes. His touch was the safest and yet the most dangerous thing she knew. She trusted him with her life but she was so out of control, she was Pandora, and nothing in the world would ever be the same.

Not throughout the day, nor on their walk back to shelter did they break their spontaneous vow of silence. She felt somehow that she had given up all of her physical inhibitions in exchange for a different kind of shyness, and everything she would have said in words was now only communicable in a look or a touch. The mere fact of walking with her hand in his was halfway unbelievable. She did not want him to see that it made tears come into her eyes – because this was the way she had always wanted to walk with him, for so long, wishing that there was some way on Earth or in the universe that she could walk with him instead of walking alone.

She knew she would have to say something, or he would wonder what was wrong. But even when night had fallen and they were lying together under this strange planet's stars, she could not find the words to break their silence. She was inexplicably overwhelmed by a terror that whatever she might say would take away or lessen what had happened between them. He must have sensed this in her, because he leaned in to brush her hair away from her face, and said,

"Well, I suppose we've found the ultimate way to settle an argument. If they had taught this tactic at the Academy, just think how often you and I would have agreed on things when we were serving together."

She closed her eyes. "Chakotay!" she said, in spite of herself, and in an instant her peace of mind was restored. "How do you know how to do that?"

"Do what?"

"How do you know what to say to me when I'm too afraid to say anything at all?"

He let his touch travel from her hair to her temple, and he thoughtfully traced the line of her chin. "You know, Kath, it's funny, but I'm not sure that I ever have seen you afraid before today. You're the bravest person I know."

"I guess I can stare down species 8472 with the best of them, but just don't ask me to try being in a romantic relationship."

He laughed. "Fair enough."

"My great-grandmother," she said after a pause, "was by most standards a superstitious woman. She believed in heaven, and hell, and she used to say that even if a person was good enough to get into heaven, there was no guarantee they wouldn't have to go back, to live another lifetime if there was something left unresolved. She used to tell us stories about the haunted souls who had to fall out of heaven, because something wasn't right, and they had to return to the world of the living to rectify it. But by then, they had become so accustomed to heaven that leaving it was the greatest torture it were ever possible to experience. She used to say that the thunderstorms of Indiana were the cries of those souls, being ripped out of heaven by the hands of God, and returning to a world that to them was only harshness, and violence, and grief. They couldn't see any of the joy in living anymore, because they had witnessed the incomparable peace of death."

He continued to stroke her hair. "She would tell you these stories when you were a child?"

"When no one was around to stop her, yes. But the strange thing is that even though I didn't believe her then, I think that I believe her now."

"What do you mean?"

Her eyes searched his face in the darkness. "I cant – be without you anymore. I'm not strong enough, not the way I was. I think that's why I kept pushing you away for all those years, because I knew that if I stopped, even for a second, that all of the strength I had would be defeated. That I wouldn't be able to come back."

"To what?"

"To reality, to a life without you, to the things that I've seen and the battles I've had to fight alone. I would be - like the thunderstorm. Only grieving, and unable to fight anymore."

She watched him struggling to understand. He held her face in his hands and stared into her eyes.

"Kathryn, you never have been without me. Don't you see that from the moment I met you I've been at your side, fighting the same fight. They say that physical intimacy changes everything between two people, but in the greater sense I don't believe it changes anything. Even when you refused my help or didn't want anything to do with me, I've still been there waiting for you, whether you wanted me or not. And I always will be. I won't deny that there have been times when I've been so angry that I've wanted to hurt you, and I know we've hurt each other enough, since this all began. But even then, even when I was furious with you I still would have laid down my life for you without a thought. That's what it means not just to love someone, but to believe in them. I believe in you, Kathryn. I believe that you were meant to do great things, to move mountains. And if you love me, then let that love make you stronger, because that's all it can ever do."

She held on to his arms, having never felt more frail in all her life.

"Please promise me that you'll never leave me."

It was a strange request, as she had been, and would most likely continue to be, the one to depart either for the call of space travel or the call of justice. But there was nothing more she wanted now than for him to gather her in his arms and say to her, over and over, "I promise."

And so he did, until she believed him.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

Fleet Admiral O'Shaughnessy sat in a wide office chair in a safe, if remote, location that was undisclosed even to some of his compatriots. He had taken upon himself to invite only his closest friends, those he could trust implicitly to breathe not a word to anyone. He did not like to admit to himself that the Cassandras were a problem – perhaps a catastrophic one, at that. Admiral Montoya and Admiral Pallin sat with him in stony silence.

At last Montoya said, "Let them destroy San Francisco. It truly does not matter as long as we have what we need."

"Oh? And what is that?"

"Access to the biohazard, and materials to build a new prototype."

"It's not that simple. People at Starfleet are asking questions. They want to know who these women are."

"That information is unattainable."

Admiral O'Shaughnessy resisted the urge to laugh. "No information," he said, "is unattainable. If it can't be researched, it can be bought. And if it can't be bought, it can be forced from the mouths of even the most stalwart of soldiers."

Pallin rose abruptly. "Speaking of unattainable information," he said, "I have it on good authority that Kathryn Janeway means to seek out the Borg collective."

"To what end?"

"Members of the Apocrypha racing club believe that the Ultimate Starfleet Officer project stems from some type of alliance."

"An alliance? A deal with the devil, so to speak?"

"So to speak, sir."

"That's just fine. If she does gain access to the collective, she'll find out that there is no alliance, and no doubt she will be assimilated, or simply killed. Finally, gentlemen, a problem that solves itself."

"You doubt her ability to survive a confrontation with the Borg."

O'Shaughnessy frowned. "Even a cat with nine lives," he replied, "must see the day when luck runs out. If I didn't know better I would say that Janeway learned a thing or two from her association with our morbid friends the Cassandras."

Pallin did not see the humor in this comment. "I think, sir" he said, "that she means to survive."

"And I meant to win at cards the other night, but things just didn't swing my way, now did they? We are in the middle of a war, and you insist on worrying about one woman with no allies and remarkably bad judgment. Perhaps she will learn the truth, but if she does, she will be without a tongue to speak it."


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

When Margaret Thorpe gracefully descended from her shuttlecraft shortly after daybreak, she did not find Kathryn in any of the customary places, and had to walk all the way to the river's edge to find her.

And Kathryn, dressed in nothing but a flimsy nightdress, kneeling by the water in a figure of great distress, did not hear Margaret's authoritative footstep behind her.

"Goodness, are you ill?" Margaret's sharp black eyes widened in fear as she contemplated the possibility that her prized aviator might not be in a condition to take to the skies.

When Kathryn rose, and turned to Margaret revealing a face that was unharmed physically but drenched in tears, Margaret was entirely taken aback and found herself almost wishing that she had been ill. Illness was something that was entirely straightforward and reasonable – and could in all likelihood be dealt with by means of a hypospray. Margaret could not remember when she had last seen someone cry. The Cassandras were certainly capable of it, but they rarely expressed anything other than rage, pure or distilled, depending on the occasion. And a Starfleet Captain? Margaret would have thought Kathryn Janeway as tough as nails only a few short days ago. A terrifying thought crept into her mind.

"Kathryn, are you having second thoughts about contacting the Borg?"

In anyone else, Kathryn's expression would have aroused a sense of sympathy, but in Margaret it evoked only bewilderment, and panic for the state of her own projects. All of a sudden Kathryn seemed to her small and fragile, and perhaps psychologically incapable of handling the mission that was before her. But it didn't make sense – she had been so motivated to join Apocrypha! And this planet was completely desolate, there was no one for thousands of miles who could have talked her out of it.

Kathryn lowered her head for a moment, the early morning sun dancing on her tear-stained cheek, and then she looked at Margaret, resigned.

"No," she said. "I'm fine."

Margaret's lips tightened into a tense smile which, if it had not been as tense as it was, might have made her very handsome. "Good," she said, "because I've got news. We have located the central nexus, Kathryn. It's time."

Kathryn nodded. "All right. But there's something I have to do first."

She turned to walk towards shore, but Margaret caught her by the arm and held her tightly.

"Just promise me you'll come back with some answers. Promise me that."

Kathryn met her gaze with tired eyes. "I can't even promise you that I'll come back alive. I think you know that there are some hazards involved in this work."

Margaret searched for a sign. She had picked this woman, she had known that this misunderstood, angry red-haired woman was a fighter from day one, the only person capable of truly vindicating Apocrypha.

"You will not die out there," she ordered Kathryn quietly. "You will remember what you're fighting for, and that memory will remain in your mind always, and give you strength. Some warriors have lovers waiting for them when they return from battle; others of us aren't so lucky. But we have justice on our side, and it won't be done unless we survive. You may have thought that your destiny was to die aboard that ship of yours, or else, crashing into a neutron star on a dare. But if your past has proved anything, it is that your destiny is to live."


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Truth be told, Kathryn considered Margaret Thorpe to be an exceedingly strange woman. Most likely well into her sixties, she wore her curly greying hair in a complex assembly of pins placed every which way around her head. She was painfully thin, in fact she seemed only to eat when it was absolutely necessary to do so. Her face was by turns beautiful and severe, with its wide-set, intelligent dark eyes, lovely upturned nose, and lips that seemed to be almost permanently set in an expression of discontent. She walked like a soldier, or perhaps like a dancer, back terribly straight and arms swinging rhythmically at her sides.

She ran the Apocrypha racing club with an iron fist, as if she were the most rule-bound of Starfleet Admirals. And yet she hated Starfleet with a passion so intense that it seemed to come from within, like an inborn character trait. It was this inexplicable hatred that so fascinated Kathryn and made her think Margaret very unusual. There must have been a reason, beyond the ordinary run of reasons – and yet Margaret virtually never spoke about her own life, thus leaving everyone in her circle to ponder the origins of the vendetta she so proudly executed on a daily basis.

It was in this very silent way that the two of them had come together, neither willing to reveal anything about her past. For although at this late hour Kathryn felt sure of her self-imposed mission, she had never revealed anything to Margaret about her own original reasons for joining Apocrypha, and had never said that her personal battle against Starfleet had started much later. She was terribly curious to know what Margaret supposed of her; a decorated Starfleet officer who returned home from a seven-year mission, only to ally herself with a group of misfits from all walks of life, a group whose main occupation was the engineering of space-races so dangerous as to be illegal. And yet, despite these glaring incongruities, Margaret had never asked Kathryn anything, had never seemed suspicious of anything, but simply accepted Kathryn's presence, and tolerance for danger, as fact. It was as if she offered Kathryn anonymity, and expected to be paid in kind.

There was an irony to Kathryn's present journey to Seven of Nine's gravesite. She could only in rare moments admit this to herself, but the truth was that Seven and Chakotay's brief affair had played no small part in the chain of events culminating in Kathryn's defection to Apocrypha. She had been so angry then, at one individual, and now that anger was all but gone, and had been replaced by a mission of vengeance against an entire organization. Chakotay's love was hers, and Seven….

She docked her ship in what remained of the cube that she and Seven had visited together. It was indeed a burial ground, the skeleton of a vessel bearing hundreds of dead bodies, both Borg and human. Kathryn searched the wreckage for hours. She did not find Seven's body, but had seen enough to know that her friend could never have survived.

How was she to mourn the death of someone who had been to her both parent and child, teacher and student, friend and enemy? It had sometimes seemed that her lectures to Seven on individuality only served to make them more fused with one another, inextricably wound together in that cord of questionable philosophy. She did not know how else she could have loved Seven, how much more, or how deeply, nor did she know how much more she could have hated Seven – her stubbornness, her wilfulness, her arrogance – that tremendous resemblance to everything Kathryn disliked about herself. She could not bury Seven without leaving a great part of herself behind, lost, just like her dear friend, to the overtaking evil, a casualty of war.

Kathryn remained for many hours aboard the wrecked ship, feeling somehow that leaving would signify a defeat. But by and by Margaret's warning and her call to arms took their effect, and Kathryn rose, an expression of calm determination on her face. She would face her true enemy now, Seven's own creator and the only mystery remaining in the Ultimate Starfleet Officer project. She knew that she would never really recover from Seven's death, but she told herself that if she were to die in the pursuit of conquering the Borg, then she would be doing it not for Apocrypha, and not for Starfleet, but for Seven.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

Seven of Nine, armed, dangerous, and very much alive, stood at the head of a crowd of tall women in Apocrypha racing uniforms. This, she thought, was her true calling in life – to be a leader, the Captain of her own ship, the general of her own army.

"Starfleet created us," she said to the women, "and it is in the same spirit that they intend to destroy us. They believe it is their right to destroy any weapon, any computer that does not behave as it should. But you and I are not weapons, we are not computers. We will not be slaves to Admiral O'Shaughnessy's mission to create the perfect soldier. But it is not enough to fight back – we can attack his friends, his allies, we can even murder him where he sleeps but it will not bring us our independence or vindicate us."

She gazed at a hundred pairs of deep-set hazel eyes. "Psychic Sisters," she said. "Does anyone have intelligence on its nature, location, or how to procure or cultivate it?"

One of the identical women stepped forward. "I have heard," she replied, "through unofficial channels that there is an informant, or possibly several informants assisting the rebel Starfleet officers, whatever their number."

"Assist them how?"

"Apparently there is still some movement to organize the dissolution of the Ultimate Starfleet Officer, among people directly connected to Starfleet. These informants are attempting to aid in their cause, and may therefore have intelligence on Psychic Sisters. We were given this –" she placed a small object in Seven's hand – "by a man claiming to have been in contact with one such informant."

Seven superciliously examined the object – a Starfleet comm badge, badly damaged, most likely by water.

"What is the significance of this?"

"It belonged to a Starfleet Commander, named Chakotay. He had been posing as one of O'Shaughnessy's men and is now wanted on several charges."

Seven returned the badge without any sign of emotion. "Well then, he is probably dead," she said, "and of no use to us. Are there any other developments?"

"Wait," said the Cassandra. "Chakotay is rumored to have left the planet, in possession of a document related to the Ultimate Starfleet Officer, and possibly to Psychic Sisters. If he is alive, he may be returning with valuable information."

Seven was not one to be contradicted, but she also knew a losing battle when she saw one. "Let me have another look at that."

She turned the comm badge over in her palm and pondered its new meaning. If Chakotay had not drowned as the badge would suggest, then perhaps he had cleverly dropped it in a lake or river to avoid suspicion. For a moment, Seven wondered if her own physiological transformation had had the side effect of making her more shortsighted, but quickly she dismissed the thought.

"If Chakotay is alive," she said carefully, "then he will likely be apprehended by Starfleet upon his return. We have an advantage now; they are weak and will only continue to weaken under our assault. It is your job to find Chakotay before they do. Do you understand?" 


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

His overwhelming feeling was that he should not have let her go. But that, of course, would have necessitated him having some choice in the matter.

He could only imagine the cruelest of scenarios, the one in which he lost her, only moments after finding her again. She might have survived confrontations with the Borg in the past, but playing with this type of luck was unquestionably foolish. Was it the daredevil in her that he so loved, or was it only the fact that she was willing, at all costs, to follow her guiding principles? If she died, could he ever forgive her for following them?

Instead of pondering these questions he tried desperately to remain in some fantasy in which they had been together ever since their time on New Earth – that they had spent seven years together aboard _Voyager_, not as colleagues or friends or occasional enemies, but as lovers. If he had shared her bed every night since then, if he had been her shoulder to lean on throughout that journey, would it be any easier to let her go now? Perhaps he would have been more patient with the universe, or perhaps he would have been angrier still.

"_Please promise me that you'll never leave me."_

The journey back to Earth was turbulent, and he could see long before he reached his destination that there was a storm rising. He imagined that he would dock at Alpha Walker, the safe ground of the Cassandras, and make his way back to the planet when he could judge that Starfleet was sufficiently occupied as not to be aware of his movements. But these best-laid plans were abruptly ended – before he could make his move toward Alpha Walker he was intercepted by a Starfleet issue shuttlecraft.

"Disarm your vessel and stand down."


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

"That was a dirty trick, B'Elanna. No one makes the blood of a wanted fugitive run cold quite like you do."

"You've gotten too sensitive in your old age."

"Where are we going?"

"We're following orders. Welcome to the new rule of the Cassandras, one hundred women against the world. Our mandate is to help them locate the Psychic Sisters drug, in exchange for which, they probably won't kill us."

"Sounds like a fair deal."

"All we have so far," said B'Elanna, gesturing to the workstations in their underground hideout, "is this database. And the word of an informant that the answers to our questions lie with a woman named Peg O'Shaughnessy, who, as far as we can gather, doesn't exist. Where were you all this time, anyway?"

Chakotay scanned the basement absently, looking at nothing in particular. "I was trying to get some answers of my own."

B'Elanna would not allow him to avoid her prying gaze. "What do you mean? Oh, my - Janeway. You found Janeway, didn't you? Where is she?"

Chakotay shook his head. "I don't know, anymore. Apocrypha has theorized that what is happening here is the result of some type of alliance between Starfleet and the Borg collective. They have recruited Kathryn as their own personal flyer. She's gone to face the Borg, again."

B'Elanna stared. "And you couldn't talk her out of it."

"Please, B'Elanna."

"Okay," said B'Elanna, reconsidering the question. "But this pretty unbalanced, even for her. Does she really expect that she can make it out ali - " she paused, for once remembering the power of tact. "Well, I hope she's all right. How was it for you, seeing her again?"

She was once again made suspicious of the fact that he was looking absolutely everywhere but in her direction.

"She's inconsolable about Seven."

"What? What about Seven?"

Finally he met her gaze. "That's right, you couldn't have known," he said. "Before the war broke out, Seven and Captain Janeway went to one of the excavation sites for the Ultimate Starfleet Officer project. There were Starfleet men there, harvesting Borg technology and body parts. Seven, for whatever reasons struck her in the moment, decided to play the hero. She destroyed the cube, and Kathryn couldn't stop her. She's dead."

To his intense surprise and dismay, B'Elanna burst into laughter.

"B'Elanna!"

"Oh, I'm sorry Chakotay. It's just that Seven of Nine is about the farthest thing from dead that you could possibly conceive of."

"What?"

"_Dead_? The woman is a four-star general, Chakotay! I'm not even sure that this coup would have gotten off the ground without her. Say what you will about Seven, but she has certainly found her niche as a military strategist. In fact, my orders to intercept you were passed down by none other."

"But – how could it be?"

"Well, rumor has it that these Cassandras have a habit of both seeking out death and uncannily surviving it, and I guess she's one of them now. I certainly wouldn't mind having some of that luck thrown my way."

"Don't even joke about that."

"Oh tell me you've never been tempted to cast in your lot with them, Chakotay. They don't care whether they live or die, and they're fighting for the mere principle of freedom. You have to admit it's appealing."

"I see too many parallels between that and what Captain Janeway is doing. It's impulsive, and disorganized, and I'm very afraid that a war can't be won that way."

"I think that has everything to do with who one's opponent is."

Chakotay sighed. "Well, I'm very glad she's alive. I only wish there were a way to tell Kathryn."

"Do you think that's why she's doing this? Some type of vindication for Seven's supposed death?"

"No. That might be part of it, but it's about Starfleet, about what these men are doing. Kathryn truly believes this is the only way to stop them. I don't know, maybe I should have argued with her more."

"And you? What do you believe?"

Chakotay sighed. "I was told," he replied after a moment, "by a source of dubious dependability that the only way Kathryn could survive all of this would be to return to Starfleet. The same source gave me this – " he withdrew the tablet he had carried with him since his encounter with Balthasar, "and offered me no information about what it is, or what it's for. And yet, for some reason, I believe him. Perhaps it's out of blind faith, perhaps it's simply because there is no one and nothing else to believe. And yourself? You must have a theory."

B'Elanna shook her head. "Only the very same source of dubious dependability."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, while you were freezing me out I had to go somewhere for information. The same man you met was the man who told me about Peg O'Shaughnessy. I think we should follow every lead we can to find her."

They were interrupted by the sound of a door clanging, and a team of Cassandras charged inside. In a split second, one of them had Chakotay pinned to the metal desk, while another held a phaser to his back.

"Come with us."

"What are you doing?" shouted B'Elanna.

"I have orders to take him to Headquarters."

"He's with us. We picked him up on orders that came from Headquarters, as you call it. Not to mention that your ex-drone commander-in-chief used to be our subordinate officer. Let him go."

"What is this?" One of the Cassandras reached for Chakotay's tablet.

"Let me the hell out of this restraint and I'll explain it to you."

After a silent conference between colleagues, Chakotay was allowed to stand.

"I received this," he said, glaring venomously at the armed women, "from a source who claims to have information about Psychic Sisters. Do you have any idea how to interpret this image?"

The Cassandra who had held him down scanned the document with her limpid hazel stare.

"This is a map of Alpha Walker's infrastructure."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Alpha Walker was built on a bio-neural network, much like the modern starships. This must be a map of a specific region in that network."

B'Elanna's eyes widened. "And do you know who Peg O'Shaughnessy is?"

"No. I've never heard of her."

"That last name," said Chakotay. "O'Shaughnessy. There is an Admiral O'Shaughnessy who seems to have a large hand in this Ultimate Starfleet Officer project. I had some dealings with him when I was under cover. Maybe there is a relation?"

"Let's see." The Cassandra searched the database and pulled up a file. "O'Shaughnessy. Here he is. Never married, no children. One sister, Peg. Nine years younger."

"Did she ever work for Starfleet?"

"It looks like she was rejected from the Academy. But she still has a file on record. I'll generate an image for you."


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter Twenty-Three

Kathryn found herself in an all-too-familiar setting, this formidable structure of nodes and pathways, any ordinary human being's nightmare, the home of the Borg. Did it seem even more deadly to her now, that she had experienced those brief moments of connection with Seven, and the hybrid girl who had died at Starfleet's hand? She knew too much to ignore the possibility that she might take her last breath here, as she had in so many dreams and premonitions.

"Why don't you just admit it? You think it's beautiful."

The woman with shining eyes who appeared before Kathryn was like a vision of death itself. The Borg Queen, her most trusted enemy, translucent skin burning against the metallic contours of her equine body.

"I've been waiting for you to come."

"I know," said Kathryn. "Why have you brought me here? Why won't you release me from this hold?"

The Queen approached the regeneration chamber where Kathryn stood, locked inside it with a series of chains around her arms. Seeming to ponder the question, the Queen cast a sidelong glance at the restraints, running her knotted hand along the chains.

"I've been everywhere you've been," she said. "I've seen everything. I've seen you with him. How could you, Kathryn, when you know it's no use? "

She stared at Kathryn with her frank, unnerving gaze. "You'd have to admit he's a poor substitute for what you really want."

"Haven't you ever heard," said Kathryn, meeting the Queen's eyes, "of healing, and of redemption?"

"Redemption? What a curious choice of words. I suppose it can only mean that you consider it a sin to desire us as you do."

"I can't say it's my best character trait."

"Kathryn."

"I won't lie to you. I can't, clearly. You've been everywhere I've been, you've invaded me somehow, you've been inside my mind for so long. And I have wanted this, I've been drawn to you, as I have been to my own death, for nearly a year. And it's so powerful, it's like - it's like no desire I've ever felt. It consumes me, and you know that. But I'm here for a different reason."

"There is no other reason... Apocrypha, this noble fight against Starfleet. You only needed an excuse. You could never explain that to Chakotay. He would never understand. And for that reason, you will never belong to him."

Kathryn lowered her head and stared down at the chains that bound her. "Maybe you're right," she said. "But I don't belong to you, either. I don't belong to anyone. Isn't that the nature of individuality?"

"The nature of individuality." One by one, the Queen released the chains and touched Kathryn's bare arms with her hands, which were at once cold and warm, frightening and soothing. "You would sound so convincing if I didn't know how deeply you longed to escape that nature, to be free of it once and for all. Why do you continue to fight it? Resistance, after all..."

"No," said Kathryn, battling back the wave of collective consciousness that was threatening to assault her. "I came for information. This alliance that you've forged with Starfleet – Borg bodies, Borg technology, in exchange for – what? What are you getting from Starfleet that would justify you allowing them to harvest organs from your dead in order to create hybrid soldiers?"

To her intense surprise, the Queen's eyes alighted with amusement. "An alliance?" she asked, almost playfully. "That is what you think has happened?"

"I don't know," said Kathryn, struggling against the woman's touch. "Just – tell me, or let me go."

The Queen tilted her head. "Why does this make you so uncomfortable?"

"You know why," Kathryn growled.

The Queen breathed a sigh of sympathy. "You want to feel my hands on your heart – you feel them now, don't you? I am the mirror of you. I reflect everything that is inside. Perfection. Synchronicity."

Kathryn wanted to close her eyes, she wanted so desperately to give in, but somehow she hung on.

"No."

Fine lines formed on the Queen's pale forehead. "Why, Kathryn? Why do you still believe you can resist us?"

_Please promise me that you'll never leave me._

_I believe in you, Kathryn. I believe that you were meant to do great things, to move mountains._

"I may not belong to anyone, and I may never," said Kathryn in a low whisper. "But somewhere on Earth, there is someone who knows that my sun rises and sets with him, and that for every mile I walk my heart is beating in step with his. He knows, and for this reason I have no further need to share anything with anyone. I can keep my thoughts to myself. I am not a young woman; I have fought many battles in my day, and soon the color will drain from my face and the dark lines overtake it. But in truth the Earth could swallow me up this instant and turn my bones to dust, and it wouldn't matter, because I love someone so dearly. What more have I to do in my life? I can defeat my enemies with this love, and it will be my saving grace and my redeemer."

For a long time, the two women stood, their bodies practically touching, staring at one another in silence.

Finally, the Queen parted her lips. "There is no alliance, Kathryn," she said plainly. "Some years ago, a man from your world developed a biologic that can annihilate the Borg. But instead of attacking us, he used the virus to bargain with us, to obtain the materials he needed to create a race of Borg-human hybrids. The virus is an integral part of the genetic makeup of these hybrids, and they require it to survive. But to us, it is lethal, and we have submitted to the will of this man and his followers, until such time as we can launch a counter-offensive. Make no mistake. We will succeed."

Kathryn searched the other woman's wide-set, metallic green-gray eyes, her own widening in sudden understanding.

"You were never going to assimilate me," she intoned. "You need my help. Don't you? _Don't you?_" The last words were a guttural scream.

There was another silence, for a moment, Kathryn felt the Queen look at her with an expression of great tenderness.

And then she felt, all through her body, a searing, unspeakable pain. She lost her balance, and collapsed on the ground. It ripped through her like a tidal wave, causing her heart to pound like a deafening drum, obscuring all other sounds around her.

Then the world went black.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chakotay stepped out of his shuttlecraft and into the artificially bright environment of Alpha Walker. He went North, as he had been instructed, until he came across an assembly line of work benches, and a thin woman with her hair tied up in pins, putting military gear into canisters. Cassandras came and went, packing up loads of gear and transferring them onto ships for transport back to Earth.

"Margaret Thorpe?"

The woman turned abruptly, and seeing a Starfleet uniform, reached for her weapon. He raised his hands, in a gesture that was becoming maddeningly familiar.

"Oh," she said, examining his face more carefully. "Cassandra said you would be coming. What can I do for you, Commander?" she asked, returning to her work.

"That's heavy artillery you've got there," Chakotay observed.

"Believe me, it didn't come cheap," she replied. "War is a business, Commander, make no mistake about it."

Chakotay laughed. "I agree with you. Speaking of war, I'm hoping you might be able to help me find someone instrumental in fighting this one. Can you tell me where I could find Peg O'Shaughnessy?"

The woman didn't flinch. "I'm afraid I have no idea. No one by that name works here."

"Are you sure? I think I saw her name on the Apocrypha crew manifest."

She continued furiously packing canisters. "Well then, she may be dead. The crew manifest can't seem to keep up with the number of casualties we suffer."

"No, I don't think she's dead." Chakotay advanced further.

"Perhaps she suffered the unfortunate fate of becoming a Cassandra. I hear they're recruiting these days."

"No, I don't think so. In fact, I'm absolutely sure she is not a Cassandra. I happen to have a photograph of her right here."

Margaret did not look up, but her hands stopped moving.

"You are Peg O'Shaughnessy, Ms. Thorpe."

Her dark eyes fell to the photograph in Chakotay's hands. It was an unmistakable likeness.

She stood deadly still for a moment. And then she turned to him with a snarl on her face that made him entirely sure she was capable of murder.

"What the hell do you want from me?"

Chakotay felt his heart quicken. "I want to help you," he said. "I want to know what happened to you."

She fixed her intense, curious stare upon him once again. "Why?"

"Because I think you may know more than you think you do about this war. I think you may be able to solve some crucial problems."

She snapped one of the canisters around her shoulder. "Is that so? What happened to me, as you put it, is that my parents died when I was eight, and left me in the care of my brother. That is what happened to me, Commander. Is this little chat over now?"

"I've met your brother," said Chakotay. "Fleet Admiral Derek O'Shaughnessy."

"Well then you know he has some rather interesting ideas."

"To say the least."

She continued to stare into his eyes, and he could not tell if she was about to cry, or scream, or do something else entirely.

"He experimented on me. He forced me to take drugs, he beat me senseless. He injected Borg DNA into my body. He did this to me."

She lifted her Apocrypha uniform shift, and revealed a long, rectangular metal plate where her chest should have been. The scars and dried blood were still visible.

She pulled the shirt back down violently. "All in the name of science. To create the perfect officer."

"I'm so sorry," said Chakotay.

She turned her gaze to the shipyard, steadying her breathing. The artificial light hit the fine lines on her face, making her look old and drawn. "He tried to force me to join Starfleet when I came of age, so he could continue his experiments on me. But I wasn't about to be his perfect officer anymore. I deliberately failed the Starfleet entrance exam, and I ran away to join Apocrypha, where I disappeared. Not the ideal life, perhaps, but I've built a home here. I've been safe here."

Chakotay put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm afraid you might be wrong about that, Margaret."

"What do you mean?"

"A few months ago, I met an informant, who told me that I could find the source of the Psychic Sisters drug from this document. Do you know what this map represents?"

He pulled up the schematic that he had been carrying since his encounter with Balthasar.

"Of course I do," she said impatiently. "This is the structural cell underneath Alpha Walker's engine room. I was here when it was built. What are you saying, Commander?"

"Is there any way to get down there?"

Chakotay had never been inside the bowels of Alpha Walker before; it was a minefield of unfinished interior design, unheated rooms with exposed beams, ship components and racing equipment.

"This way."

Margaret ushered him into the engine room.

"Help me get all this out of the way."

He helped her move the detached bulkheads, which much have been part of the design for some other area of the station. Once the material had been moved, he noticed that there was a wide hatch on the floor.

"There's a tool kit on that shelf, will you hand it to me?"

Chakotay obliged.

After a few minutes of wrestling, Margaret's deft hand pried open the hatch.

Cassandra had been correct. This was the infrastructure of Alpha Walker. A network of pin-jointed beams, each of them connected to tiny vials of blue fluid.

"What is this?"

Chakotay shook his head in disbelief. "Psychic Sisters," he said. "It's being generated here, on Alpha Walker. Starfleet must have had people undercover while Apocrypha was in its beginning stages. Margaret –"

She had risen, and began pacing slowly, without closing the hatch. Her hands were folded across her chest, and her eyes darted everywhere.

"He found me," she said. "He's been here, all along, watching me. He tricked me into thinking I was safe here, but he's always had his Starfleet spies hanging around. This place - this place was my escape. Apocrypha was exactly the group of misfits I was starving for. They took me in, they trained me, and they made me their managing director because of my passion and my resolve to expose Starfleet for what it really is. I have spent my entire career trying to fight my brother. And _this – this_ has been going on right in front of my face, for years!"

She knelt beside the hatch and cradled her head in her hands.

"It wasn't enough to torture me, was it?" she moaned. "You had to laugh at me too, you bastard."


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

_No pipe I'll smoke, no horse I'll yoke__  
><em>_Though with rust my plow turns brown__  
><em>_Till a smiling bride by my own fireside__  
><em>_Sits the star of the County Down._

"We are weakest on the Northeast end. Don't you see this gaping hole right here? We'll need more people, or at the very least a different formation."

"No. That's where we plant the explosive. Draw them in, make them think it's where we're weakest, and detonate the device when there are enough men there to make it count."

"I don't agree. We shouldn't even be thinking about that device at this stage. We can't manufacture the replacements fast enough to use them before we have a clear advantage."

"That device is the way to get a clear advantage."

Seven stood surrounded by her crew, the Cassandras who followed her into battle and obeyed her brilliant commands. But she was not listening to their discussion on strategy. She looked away in the distance, preoccupied by an intuition.

"Seven?"

Presently, she returned from her state of contemplation, and looked into the hazel eyes of her compatriots.

"I must go. Now."

"What happened?"

"Locate the emergency holographic doctor. Tell him to report to our medical bay along with the _Voyager_ crewmembers. Seal the medical bay and put armed guards around the perimeter. Draft additional personnel from Alpha Walker if you need to."

"Seven – "

"Do it. Now!"

PAGE BREAK

Seven's intuition took her to a coastal forest near the Gulf of Mexico, where she found Kathryn Janeway's body lying near a landslide. She was half-naked, and there were cuts all over her face and body.

"Captain," Seven whispered, out of long-standing habit.

Seven had never quite realized this before, but she had been one of those _Voyager_ crewmembers who believed, on some level, that Captain Janeway could never die. That she would not be, like ordinary mortals, subject to the pitfalls of antimatter explosions, warp core breaches, alien viruses and abuses of the temporal prime directive. Captain Janeway was above it all; she didn't fear death and so she could, in the absence of fear, elude it at every turn.

Seeing her now, lying helpless on the uneven ground, her body drained of all its energy and no breath escaping her parted lips, was unbearable. Seven felt as if it couldn't be happening. This had to be a mistake - a trick of the mind, an illusion.

She knelt by her former Captain's side, brushing a lock of auburn hair away from the older woman's bloodstained face.

"I let this happen to you," she whispered. "I'm sorry. You saved me from slavery, you gave me a new life. Please let me help you now."


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

No one spoke a word. No one had to. Everyone inside the sealed medical bay knew what had happened, or what was likely to happen momentarily.

Chakotay's face was white as a ghost. He gripped his phaser, as if in a moment he would have to fire it at some imaginary enemy. As if the twenty armed women lining the building were not sufficient to defend them from the real enemy outside.

At long last, the code sounded, the double doors burst open, and Seven stumbled inside, carrying the lifeless body of Kathryn Janeway.

"Kathryn!" Chakotay half screamed, rushing toward the women.

"Get her on the biobed, now. Cassandra, prepare the cortical stimulator. Sit down, Commander, or I'll remove you from the medical bay."

"Chakotay." B'Elanna's hand gripped his arm.

"Get away from me B'Elanna!"

"Chakotay, for heaven's sake, pull it together!" She turned him around and stared at him with her frank, dark eyes full of concern. "Let the man work. Okay?"

She searched his face for some sign of sanity. In reply, he gripped both of B'Elanna's hands in his.

"Just breathe, Chakotay. Think about what she needs right now. She needs you to keep calm, all right?"

"Clear!"

"No effect."

"Ten milligrams cordrazine"

"Yes sir."

Chakotay's mind was overtaken by dark images, the nightmares he had suffered in years past when he had lost her, or almost lost her. He felt there was some kind of demon in the room, stopping him from truly being with her when she needed him.

"Sir, I'm detecting no neural activity."

"One more time, Cassandra! Fifteen milligrams. Clear!"

"Doctor – "

"I said do it a-"

The Doctor stopped himself, evidently struck by some type of recollection. He covered his mouth with his hand.

"Doctor?"

The room went deadly quiet.

"Thank you, Cassandra," he said thinly. "Computer. Record time of death as somewhere between fifteen hundred and nineteen hundred hours."

"Don't you dare!" Chakotay released B'Elanna, and stared uncomprehendingly at the Doctor. "Don't you dare say that! Don't you let her die!"

"Chakotay – "

Seven reached out to try to comfort her friend, but instead he ripped her weapon from her belt.

"Then you do it! You found her, God knows how, and you must have some way to bring her back."

"Chakotay, I assure you I did everything I–"

"Bullshit! Did everything you could - what have any of you done? The only reason she is fighting this goddamned war is because of you!"

"Commander. Put it down."

"Who the hell are you to give me orders?"

"Chakotay..."

At the sound of this voice, Chakotay abandoned his rebellion, and he let the weapon fall to the ground, forgotten. Kathryn's eyes were open, and she gasped for breath, struggling to move.

"She's conscious!"

"Chakotay..."

Chakotay sank to his knees beside the biobed. "I'm here, love," he said, wrapping her in his arms. "I'm here."

The Doctor, having never before observed this type of interaction between his former Captain and her first officer, was almost as taken aback by it as he was by the fact that she had regained consciousness. For seven years, they had served as the command team aboard _Voyager_, sometimes amicably, sometimes with barely veiled friction between them. But here they were, huddled together in each other's arms like Tristan and Isolda.

Recovering his composure, the Doctor returned to work, passing a tricorder over Kathryn's body.

"Chakotay-" " she repeated.

"What is it, Kath? What did they do to you?"

"It hurts-" she managed, her eyes shutting tightly.

"Where? Doctor, is she injured?"

"She appears to be suffering from three fractured ribs and a collapsed lung," said the Doctor, "which I can treat easily. However, she also appears to be pregnant. Were you aware of this, Captain?"

Chakotay stared at the deathly pale woman in his arms, and his own heart nearly stopped.

"Kathryn? Are you-"

She opened her eyes and looked at him with an expression of great regret. "Chakotay I'm sorry," she whispered, a tear falling down her scratched cheek. "They did this to me. It's…"

"Kath, _who _did this to you?"

"Commander, I'm detecting both human and Borg genetic material."

Kathryn gripped Chakotay's hand, wincing in pain.

"The Ultimate Starfleet Officer," she whispered. "It's inside me…"

It took Chakotay many moments to realize what was happening. He stared wildly at B'Elanna.

"Psychic Sisters."

"Doctor," said B'Elanna, rising. "Captain Janeway needs to be treated with a drug called Psychic Sisters. Seven, Cassandra, do any of you have it?"

Seven withdrew a vial half-full of blue liquid from inside her jacket. "This is all I have left," she said. "As you know, we're in short supply. Take it. But know that we will all die if we cannot locate its source."

"I know where to get it," said Chakotay, standing without letting go Kathryn's hand. "It's on Alpha Walker. It's being generated as part of the neural circuitry of the space station."

Seven's blue orbs widened. "Let's go."

"That might be difficult, under the circumstances."

A new voice, similar in timbre and inflection to a hundred others, made Chakotay turn his head. Several more Cassandras had entered the medical bay, and they stood shoulder to shoulder near the door.

"Seven, I've received word," said the tall woman with hazel eyes who stood at the head of the formation, "that Margaret Thorpe has activated the auto-destruct sequence on the space station."

Seven's eyes flashed in sudden anger. "Why?"

"I don't know. I have no choice but to conclude that she intends to terminate herself, and Alpha Walker."

"Why the hell would she do something like that? We're in the middle of a war."

Cassandra raised an eyebrow delicately. "Maybe she has reason to believe we're going to lose."

Seven frowned, weighing her alternatives.

"She's given up," said Chakotay. "When we discovered that the biologic was being manufactured on Alpha Walker, she became emotional. She feels she's been tricked by O'Shaughnessy, who abused her for years and is now playing her for a fool by generating the biologic right under her nose. This is her revenge on him."

Seven rolled her eyes. "I knew that woman was a narcissistic basket-case from the moment I met her."

"You don't know what she's been through, Seven." Kathryn's voice cut through the room. The effect of Psychic Sisters was immediate; she was sitting up, and some of the color had returned to her face.

"She told you?"

"No," said Kathryn, "she never told me. But I can see things much more clearly now. Sometimes, just like you, I know things without having to be told. I have to go to Alpha Walker, I'll talk to Margaret."

Kathryn tried to lift herself off of the biobed, with great difficulty.

"Captain, with all due respect, have you lost your mind?" exclaimed the Doctor, holding her still. "You've got multiple injuries, you can't even walk!"

Kathryn's bright eyes were fixed on Chakotay, that fiercely determined stare he knew far too well.

"Then I'll crawl," she said.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Margaret stood at her favorite lookout point on Alpha Walker, where she could see down to the shipyard, and all the surrounding runways from which her Apocrypha flyers took to the skies. But they were all motionless now; the ones that remained would never fly again, and the others had been deployed to Earth with supplies for the war.

Margaret was alone. She enjoyed being alone, as it was the only time when she genuinely felt free. No one could disturb her here, no one could threaten the peace and tranquility she had found in this out-of-the-way place.

He had tried to take it from her. He had tried to steal her only refuge, and after a lifetime of being his victim, she could not let him have his way in this. She bore scars all over her body from his abuse, and his attempts to turn her into one of his drones. The Ultimate Starfleet Officer. He was impervious to the screams of his victims; perhaps he even enjoyed hearing them. And he never gave up on her, never let up in his attempts to capture her and force Borg implants into her body. It was as if his crusade was not complete without the blood and bones of his only sister.

If she died a free woman, the master of her own destiny, then he would not have won. He would be forced to go to his own grave with at least one victory outstanding.

Margaret's quiet contemplation was interrupted by the sound of a shuttlecraft landing. Kathryn Janeway, looking badly injured, stepped out of her ship and made her way with difficulty up to the lookout. She was still wearing her Apocrypha racing uniform.

"Margaret!"

"I've ordered the station evacuated!" she replied. "Get out of here, Kathryn."

Kathryn had climbed as far as she could. She rested her hands on the railing, looking up at Margaret from many feet below.

"I know what you're planning to do."

"Do you? Then I would suggest you leave now, because in about seven minutes this place will be blown to pieces."

"That's what I've come to see you about."

"If you've come to reason with me, you're a little late."

"Why did you never tell me what happened to you? Why did you hide your history with Admiral O'Shaughnessy?"

"There was no need. I thank you, Kathryn, for everything you've done. You have been a fine addition to our little racing club. But it's time to go home now. You don't really belong with us."

"I'm afraid that's not true. I'm afraid I belong with you more than ever."

"How's that?"

"You sent me to seek out the Borg, to find out what is behind the Ultimate Starfleet Officer project. Aren't you in the least bit curious to know what I've learned?"

She turned her black eyes away from Kathryn's gaze. "I already have the information I need."

"I don't think you do. Margaret, we were wrong in our assumption that there was an alliance formed between Starfleet and the Borg. There is no alliance. Your brother has been holding the Borg hostage for the bodies of dead drones. If they don't comply, he has threatened to use the Psychic Sisters drug to destroy the collective."

"Psychic Sisters – "

"It is a biologic engineered to destroy Borg drones, and by the same token, the building block of the hybrids your brother engineered. It puts the entire collective in peril, yet the Cassandras and all the other prototypes cannot survive without it."

Margaret, to her own intense surprise, threw her head back and laughed.

"You'll have to let me in on the joke," said Kathryn.

"We're the joke. He's got you, he's got me. And now he's got the collective."

"Maybe not."

Margaret looked down with curiosity at the red-haired woman standing on the stairs.

"Kathryn, you've been injured. What happened to you out there?"

"I'm pregnant," she replied, her voice controlled and matter-of-fact. "The child I'm carrying is what your brother is after; the closest thing to a perfect fusion of Borg and human genetic material."

"The Ultimate Starfleet Officer," she murmured in reply.

"Exactly. Margaret, it's over. You may think you're fighting a war up here, but I have what he really wants. Margaret… You're free."

Margaret shook her head. "I'm never free."

"You will be if you help me to survive. If you destroy this space station, I'll die, and so will all of the women you've been protecting. No one is better equipped to defeat O'Shaughnessy than the Cassandras. Together, we can win this. But we need your help."

"He's taken everything I have."

"Then take it back. Take that cell in the engine room, take the Cassandras with you and build a new Apocrypha. You can generate the biologic from there."

Margaret was silent.

"Warning. Auto-destruct sequence will activate in two minutes."

"_Please_, Margaret!"

Author's Note: After five (!) years, the saga that was "Apocrypha" and "Star of the County Down" has come to an end! I still can't believe that what started out as my little device to get Janeway and Chakotay together turned into this winding tale of government conspiracies and betrayal. If you enjoyed these stories, the theme continues in "Senza Misura," located in the ST:TNG archive, rated M (of course!). Much love, Dana

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Fleet Admiral O'Shaughnessy stood surrounded by his trusted advisors, and awaited the arrival of a person who had become very special to him indeed.

He was expecting her to enter clumsily, looking horribly disheveled, pale, and disoriented. He was expecting her to ask immediately to sit down. Maybe she would even ask for a glass of water. He would enjoy pouring one for her.

"Admiral O'Shaughnessy, Kathryn Janeway to see you."

The edges of his thin mouth curled in a smile.

"Send her in right away, Janine."

"Yes sir."

In a moment, the double doors slid apart, and the woman who entered his office did not look in the least the way he had expected. She was impeccably dressed, in her newly reinstated Starfleet uniform and Captain's pips. She walked with a quick, self-assured stride, and her long auburn hair was pulled back in a tight bun. Her face was not pale at all. In truth, one might have said she looked positively radiant.

"Captain."

"Admiral O'Shaughnessy, good morning."

He struggled to find his bearings, catching momentarily the nystagmus-plagued eye of Admiral Montoya.

"Won't you sit down. I…. I trust that you and Commander Chakotay find your new officer's quarters adequate?"

She sat down before him and gave him a bright smile. "Yes, thank you, I think we'll be quite comfortable. I have to say, though, that I was surprised at how quickly you managed to reinstate Commander Chakotay's commission."

"It's a funny story, actually," said O'Shaughnessy, joining her at the table but keeping his eyes on Montoya. "It seems that Starfleet had the wrong man all along. The crimes Commander Chakotay was accused of were in point of fact committed by a John Balthasar, a former officer with a grudge, it would seem. You can rest assured he won't be heard from again."

Only then did he fix Captain Janeway with his dark eyes, devoid of mercy.

"How convenient that he was apprehended," she said neatly.

"Yes. Captain, I must say I'm gratified to know that you've accepted your commission, and I trust that we can put this Apocrypha business to rest."

"Oh yes, Admiral," replied Captain Janeway. "I spoke with my doctor, and apparently I had been suffering from some degree of post-traumatic stress since my return from _Voyager._ That may have precipitated my participation in an organization such as Apocrypha."

"Everyone makes mistakes, Captain, even the best of us. Just so long as your space-racing days are behind you."

"You won't have to worry about that, Admiral," she said rather cheerily. "As far as I know, Apocrypha no longer exists. Alpha Walker has been entirely evacuated, and there is no trace of the Apocrypha crew, nor its vessels."

There was a long silence, during which Admiral O'Shaughnessy's gaze travelled sharply from one member of his team, to the next. Montoya nearly took a step forward, but O'Shaughnessy's stare stopped him cold.

"Is that so," he stated flatly.

"Yes, sir," said Captain Janeway. "Apocrypha is a thing of the past."

She studied him, he felt, with an off-putting manner that betrayed nothing and demanded everything.

"Well," he said curtly, "that is a tremendous relief to us all. Welcome back to the family, Captain."

He shook her hand, masking, as far as he could, his great disgust.

PAGE BREAK

Kathryn listened for the click of the doors behind her before she relaxed, and allowed herself to breathe.

As she walked confidently out of the office, a small smile played on her face.

For she had seen, in the countenance of Admiral Derek O'Shaughnessy, exactly what she had desired to see.

Fear.

THE END


	28. Chapter 28

Author's Note: After five (!) years, the saga that was "Apocrypha" and "Star of the County Down" has come to an end! I still can't believe that what started out as my little device to get Janeway and Chakotay together turned into this winding tale of government conspiracies and betrayal. If you enjoyed these stories, please keep an eye out as there may be more to come in the future! Much love, Dana

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Fleet Admiral O'Shaughnessy stood surrounded by his trusted advisors, and awaited the arrival of a person who had become very special to him indeed.

He was expecting her to enter clumsily, looking horribly disheveled, pale, and disoriented. He was expecting her to ask immediately to sit down. Maybe she would even ask for a glass of water. He would enjoy pouring one for her.

"Admiral O'Shaughnessy, Kathryn Janeway to see you."

The edges of his thin mouth curled in a smile.

"Send her in right away, Janine."

"Yes sir."

In a moment, the double doors slid apart, and the woman who entered his office did not look in the least the way he had expected. She was impeccably dressed, in her newly reinstated Starfleet uniform and Captain's pips. She walked with a quick, self-assured stride, and her long auburn hair was pulled back in a tight bun. Her face was not pale at all. In truth, one might have said she looked positively radiant.

"Captain."

"Admiral O'Shaughnessy, good morning."

He struggled to find his bearings, catching momentarily the nystagmus-plagued eye of Admiral Montoya.

"Won't you sit down. I…. I trust that you and Commander Chakotay find your new officer's quarters adequate?"

She sat down before him and gave him a bright smile. "Yes, thank you, I think we'll be quite comfortable. I have to say, though, that I was surprised at how quickly you managed to reinstate Commander Chakotay's commission."

"It's a funny story, actually," said O'Shaughnessy, joining her at the table but keeping his eyes on Montoya. "It seems that Starfleet had the wrong man all along. The crimes Commander Chakotay was accused of were in point of fact committed by a John Balthasar, a former officer with a grudge, it would seem. You can rest assured he won't be heard from again."

Only then did he fix Captain Janeway with his dark eyes, devoid of mercy.

"How convenient that he was apprehended," she said neatly.

"Yes. Captain, I must say I'm gratified to know that you've accepted your commission, and I trust that we can put this Apocrypha business to rest."

"Oh yes, Admiral," replied Captain Janeway. "I spoke with my doctor, and apparently I had been suffering from some degree of post-traumatic stress since my return from _Voyager._ That may have precipitated my participation in an organization such as Apocrypha."

"Everyone makes mistakes, Captain, even the best of us. Just so long as your space-racing days are behind you."

"You won't have to worry about that, Admiral," she said rather cheerily. "As far as I know, Apocrypha no longer exists. Alpha Walker has been entirely evacuated, and there is no trace of the Apocrypha crew, nor its vessels."

There was a long silence, during which Admiral O'Shaughnessy's gaze travelled sharply from one member of his team, to the next. Montoya nearly took a step forward, but O'Shaughnessy's stare stopped him cold.

"Is that so," he stated flatly.

"Yes, sir," said Captain Janeway. "Apocrypha is a thing of the past."

She studied him, he felt, with an off-putting manner that betrayed nothing and demanded everything.

"Well," he said curtly, "that is a tremendous relief to us all. Welcome back to the family, Captain."

He shook her hand, masking, as far as he could, his great disgust.

PAGE BREAK

Kathryn listened for the click of the doors behind her before she relaxed, and allowed herself to breathe.

As she walked confidently out of the office, a small smile played on her face.

For she had seen, in the countenance of Admiral Derek O'Shaughnessy, exactly what she had desired to see.

Fear.

THE END


End file.
